discovered two elements, won two nobels, and carried radioactive test tubes in her pockets like lipstick.
means the physicist and chemist who pioneered research on radioactivity, a term she coined, and became the first person ever to win nobel prizes in two different sciences.
from born maria sklodowska in warsaw in 1867, she moved to paris to study at the sorbonne since polish universities barred women, married pierre curie, and together they hunted an invisible force inside pitchblende ore until it yielded polonium and radium.
polonium — element she named after her homeland, poland, in 1898
radium — the glowing element that made her world famous and later killed her
institut du radium — paris lab she founded, produced four more nobel laureates
irene joliot-curie — her daughter, won her own nobel in chemistry in 1935