New ElementsNew Elements

When Maria Sklodowska left Warsaw for Paris in the autumn of 1891, her dream was to quickly complete university and return to her beloved Poland. Russia had controlled her homeland for decades, and Maria had determined in childhood to devote herself to the preservation of Polish culture. But her life changed in Paris. She decided to commit her life to experimental science, and she fell in love with physicist Pierre Curie. The young couple married and began to work obsessively to uncover the secrets of atomic structure. In their years together, Marie and Pierre discovered three new elements and revealed how radioactivity works. Their breakthroughs made them world famous, and Marie became the first woman awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. She won a second Nobel prize in chemistry after Pierre's premature death and became, along with Albert Einstein, one of the world's most famous scientists. Marie Curie lived a fascinating life during an exciting and tragic period of scientific discovery and political upheaval. This new biography vividly retells her story within the context of her era for a new generation of readers. Book jacket.