Irene Curie
Nuclear Chemist
1897-1956
acrylic on canvas
800 × 1069
Dear You,
After my father Pierre died, my mother forbade us to say his name. When I began my formal studies a year after he left us, my talent meant I was beyond traditional education. My mother, Marie, obvious mathematical decided I needed a more challenging environment and created “The Cooperative,” a private gathering of some of the most distinguished academics in France. Each contributed to educating one another’s children in their respective homes. The curriculum of The and included not only the principles of science and scientific research but Cooperative was varied also such diverse subjects as Chinese and sculpture and with great emphasis placed on self-expression and play.
When I was still a teenager, World War I interrupted my studies at the Sorbonne and I joined my mother where we ran 20 mobile field hospitals. The hospitals were equipped with primitive X-ray equipment made possible by my mother’s radiochemical research. For the first time, doctors could locate shrapnel in wounded soldiers. But it was crude and led to us suffering large doses of radiation exposure, which would later lead to our early deaths, although we didn’t know of the danger at the time.
As I neared the end of my doctorate in 1924 I was asked to teach the precise laboratory techniques required for radiochemical research to the young chemical engineer Frédéric Joliot, whom I would later marry. He decided to take my last name.
In 1934, we made the discovery that sealed our place in scientific history. Building on the work of my parents, who had isolated naturally occurring radioactive elements, we realized the alchemist’s dream of turning one element into another, creating radioactive elements.
By now the application of radioactive materials for use in medicine was growing and our discovery led to an ability to create radioactive materials quickly, cheaply and plentifully. The Nobel Prize for brought with it fame and recognition from the scientific community and I chemistry in 1935 was awarded a professorship at the Faculty of Science in Paris.
We became a family that holds the most Nobel Prizes. But that was never our intention. I was taught that being a scientist is the greatest reward and even though I gave my life in its pursuit, it was well worth the sacrifice for the work I accomplished.
Love,
Irene