Marie Curie changed the world. She discovered new . Her work was important to chemistry. Curie did experiments in Paris, France, in the early 1900s. Recently, there were plans to tear down one of the buildings that Curie worked in. Officials decided to pause the plans.
The building is called the Pavillon des Sources. It was going to be . But many people spoke out to keep the structure. More than 1,000 people signed a petition. They asked leaders to stop it.
Rima Abdul Malak is France’s Minister of Culture. On January 5, she said the plans would be stopped for now. She talked to the Curie Institute. That group owns the building. The Curie Institute doesn’t want to keep the building. Malak asked the group to find ways to protect it.
For now, the building will stand as a memory of Curie. She was born as Maria Sklodowska in Poland in 1867. She moved to France when she was 24. She studied math and science in Paris at a school called the Sorbonne.
In Paris, she met Pierre Curie. The two married in 1895. Together, the did groundbreaking work in science. They discovered two elements: polonium and radium. In 1903, Pierre and Marie won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel.
Curie’s husband died in 1906. But she kept up her research. In 1910, she wrote a paper on radioactivity. Radioactivity is a process where unbalanced release energy. This work led to Curie winning her second Nobel.
Curie continued to use her skills. During World War I, Curie came up with a kind of car. It could carry X-ray machines. She trained nurses how to use the equipment.
Curie died in 1934 at the age of 66. She was sick with leukemia. Experts believe her illness was caused by her work with radioactive elements.
“Nothing in life is to be feared,” Curie once said. “It is only to be understood.”
Updated January 12, 2024, 5:01 P.M. (ET)
By Ryan Cramer
