Posted
on September 12, 2014
 |
| Like mother, like daughter: Irene (standing) and Marie Curie |
Did
you know that Marie and Pierre Curie, famous for winning Nobel Prizes
for their pioneering work in radioactivity, had a daughter—who also
won a Nobel Prize for her work in radioactivity?!
Irene
Curie was born on this date in 1897, in Paris. She started her formal
education at age 10, but her parents soon decided that she needed a
more challenging environment than the traditional school. So Irene's
mother, Marie Curie, created what we today might call a homeschooling
co-op. She enlisted the help of a number of eminent French scholars
who also had children, and each parent took a turn educating all of
the children in his or her own home. As you might imagine, with the
Curies and another physicist, Paul Langevin, being part of “The
Cooperative,” scientific principles and methodologies were part of
the curriculum, but a variety of topics were explored in this co-op,
including Chinese and sculpture. Apparently there was a lot of
emphasis on self-expression, and a lot of time for play.
Like
her parents, Irene went into physics.
Like her parents, she married
another scientist, and they each took on the other's last name,
becoming Irene Joliot-Curie and Frederic Joliet-Curie.
Like Irene's
parents, the Joliot-Curies worked with radioactivity.
And like her parents, the
two won a Nobel Prize for their work!
They
were the first to discover how to create artificial radioactivity and
how to turn one element into another. The Joliet-Curies created
radioactive nitrogen from boron. Later they created radioactive
phosphorous from aluminum, and radioactive silicon from magnesium. |
| Radioactive atoms emit (give off) either particles or energy. |
Unfortunately, also like her mother, Joliet-Curie died from working so long with
dangerous radioactive materials.
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