Marie Curie - Pioneer of Nuclear Physics One of our joys was to go into our workroom at night; we then perceived on all sides the feebly luminous silhouettes of the bottles or capsules containing our products. It was really a lovely sight and one always new to us. The glowing tubes looked like faint, fairy lights. - Marie Curie Madame Marie Skłodowska-Curie wrote the above in 1923, recalling the work that she and husband Pierre Curie did at the turn of the century to isolate radioactive isotopes. It was during this time studying the curious Uranium emissions noticed by Henri Becquerel that she proved that Thorium was also radioactive, a word coined by her. In 1898 the Curies published papers announcing the discoveries of Polonium and Radium. In 1903 Marie shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband and Becquerel, becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and in 1911, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, becoming the first person to attain a second. She was
female - adult