CHRIS PACKHAM: Aboard a train bound for Paris sits a woman. Such was her passion for science, she travelled across Europe to study at the Sorbonne.
Nobody could have guessed that this immigrant, with barely a penny to her name, would go on to demolish some of science’s most firmly held beliefs… But Marie Sklodowska Curie was no ordinary person.
She didn’t seek out fame and prizes, choosing instead to focus her research on an area largely ignored by her male counterparts: radioactivity.
Curie was studying rocks containing uranium, a magical element that literally glowed in the dark. For years, it was the only known radioactive material. Then Curie came across a sample which gave off three hundred times as much radiation as the rest. She suspected the presence of an even more powerful element.
MARIE-NOELLE HIMBERT: Here, Po, Polonium is the first element that they discovered.
CHRIS PACKHAM: It’s remarkable, isn’t it? Two little letters on a page.
MARIE-NOELLE HIMBERT: It looks like just two letters on a paper, but it is opening a new world.
CHRIS PACKHAM: Just a few milligrams of this stuff seemed to give off amounts of energy never seen before. She named it Polonium, after her native Poland.
MARIE-NOELLE HIMBERT: Experiments, experiments, experiments…
CHRIS PACKHAM: Then just six months later, she discovered an even more powerful element…
MARIE-NOELLE HIMBERT: Radium…
CHRIS PACKHAM: Sulphate of radium.
Curie not only discovered radium, she realised what it could be used for: to attack cancer cells.
Suddenly doctors had a new weapon in the fight against the disease.
Today we all know someone who has benefited from Curie’s pioneering work on radiotherapy, but Curie’s experiments had led her to another stunning realisation.
MARIE-NOELLE HIMBERT: She concluded that something went from inside the matter itself that emitted energy.
CHRIS PACKHAM: So she had the scientific temerity, if you like, to suggest that there were things smaller than atoms and up until this point, the atom was an indivisible thing.
MARIE-NOELLE HIMBERT: Yes. This was a revolution.
CHRIS PACKHAM: Her ideas paved the way for Rutherford to split the atom, Enrico Fermi to build the first nuclear reactor, and atomic energy to light up the world.
Curie learned that huge numbers of French servicemen were dying on the front line because the army only had one mobile X-ray machine. So, she immediately begged and borrowed from her friends and set one up in a vehicle just like this one. Then she put her boots on and headed for the front line.
EMILY MAYHEW: This is a war where over 65% of the wounds will be artillery wounds: that’s a shell that’s exploded, showering a human body with fragments, and what Marie Curie brings above all else is the ability for surgeons and medics to see exactly where those fragments are. You can look at it that she brings vision, where previously there’s been blindness.
CHRIS PACKHAM: By 1918, Curie had built up a whole fleet of mobile X-ray units, and trained an army of women to use them. It’s estimated they saved some 900,000 lives.
And after the war, radiology departments sprung up in every major hospital. If you’ve ever received an X-ray, you owe a debt to Marie Curie.
Marie Sklodowska Curie died on 4th July 1934, from leukaemia, almost certainly caused by her experiments and repeated exposure to X-rays on the battlefields of France.
She was buried in lead-lined coffin in a cemetery on the outskirts of Paris.
Only in 1995 did the French government give Curie the recognition she deserves, ordering that her body be brought here, to the Pantheon, the final resting place of the country’s greatest heroes: the first woman to receive this honour in her own right.
Chris Packham explains how Marie Curie’s discovery of polonium and radium changed atomic theory and how her study of radioactivity helped doctors use X-rays to save thousands of lives.
In 1891, Marie Curie left Poland (note that the country where Marie Curie lived was at that time controlled by the Russian Empire, following The Congress of Vienna in 1815) and travelled to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. Instead of chasing academic prizes, Curie wanted to study areas of science that were being ignored by her male colleagues - including radioactivity.
Curie studied rocks containing uranium, which at that point, was the only known radioactive material.
Curie discovered a sample which gave off three hundred times as much radiation as the rest and named it Polonium, after her native country Poland.
Six months later she discovered an even more powerful element, Radium. She realised this element could be used to attack cancer cells.
She also concluded that something went from inside the matter itself that changed it and emitted energy, which paved the way for scientists later to split the atom and build the first nuclear reactor.
During the First World War, when Marie Curie learnt that the army only had one X-ray machine, she raised funds and resources and took mobile X-ray machines to the battlefields.
The ability of doctors to X-ray wounds saved thousands of lives and lead to civilian use of X-ray technology.
Marie Curie died in 1934 from leukaemia, almost certainly caused by her experiments and repeated exposure to X-rays on the battlefields of France.
In 1995 the French government moved her body to the Pantheon, the final resting place of the country’s greatest heroes. She was the first woman to receive this honour in her own right.
This short film is from the BBC series, Icons.
Teacher Notes
Key Stage 3 - History
This short film could be used to discuss:
- Key figures in the 20th century
- The history of medicine
- WW1 battlefields
- Atomic history
- The history of women in 20th century
- The history of women in science
- 20th century science history.
Key Stage 3 - Science
This short film could be used in a science class to introduce:
- The discovery of Polonium or Radium
- Women in science
- Early uses of radiography
- Medicine on the battlefield
- Early theories of the atom
Curriculum Notes
This short film is suitable for teaching history and science at KS3 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and Third and Fourth Level in Scotland.
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