Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan
The Writer Christine de Pizan at Her Desk

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Marie Curie, Nobel Prizes for Physics and Chemistry

Marie Skłodowska Curie (born 7 November 1867)


Marie Curie in 1934,
the year of her death
Marie Curie is distinguished not only as the first woman to win a Nobel Prize (in physics, 1903), but also as the only scientist, male or female, to have won in two Nobel prizes in different fields--she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911.

For an excellent overview of her life and career, I recommend the Nobel website--where you'll find biographical information, a brief documentary from 1923, a photo gallery, and her 1911 Nobel lecture, among other resources.

And, by the way, Marie Curie's daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1935.

Curie's younger daughter, Ève Denise Curie Labouisse, did not pursue a career in science, but also had a distinguished career as a writer, as a war correspondent during the Second World War, and supported her husband, the American diplomat Henry Richardson Labouisse, who became the director of UNICEF--the Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to UNICEF in 1965, with Labouisse accepting the award and delivering the acceptance speech. (She also published a biography of her mother, Madame Curie.)


Ève, Marie, and Irène Curie,
1903