Curie, Pierre

(1859-1906)

   physicist and Nobel laureate

   Born in Paris, Pierre Curie studied physics at the university there and, with his brother Paul, worked on crystallography and magnetism. Their research led to discoveries that would be of great use in the later studies of radioactivity. other discoveries included the Curie Point—the temperature at which various metals lose their magnetic properties. In 1894, he met and soon married marie sklowdow-ska (curie) and together they worked on radioactivity. In 1898, they isolated the element radium from pitchblende—a radioactive material that also contains uranium. They later (1903) shared the Nobel Prize in physics with henri becquerel for their work on radioactivity. In 1904, Pierre Curie was appointed professor of physics at the university of Paris and, a year later, was named to the Academy of Sciences. He was killed in 1906, when he was struck by a horse-drawn carriage. His remains were transferred to the Panthéon in 1995.