ANSWERS: 1
  • Marie Curie's work is comparable to that of Newton, Einstein, and Tesla (who is very undercredited). She did lots to pioneer the fields of physics, chemistry, and medicine, among others. From Wikipedia: "The Curies' work contributed substantially to shaping the world of the 20th and 21st centuries, in both its physical and societal aspects. L. Pearce Williams observes: The result of the Curies' work was epoch-making. Radium's radioactivity was so great that it could not be ignored. It seemed to contradict the principle of the conservation of energy and therefore forced a reconsideration of the foundations of physics. On the experimental level the discovery of radium provided men like Ernest Rutherford with sources of radioactivity with which they could probe the structure of the atom. As a result of Rutherford's experiments with alpha radiation, the nuclear atom was first postulated. In medicine, the radioactivity of radium appeared to offer a means by which cancer could be successfully attacked. If the work of Maria SkÅ‚odowska–Curie helped overturn established ideas in physics and chemistry, it has had an equally profound effect in the societal sphere. In order to attain her scientific achievements, she had to overcome barriers that were placed in her way as a woman in both her country of origin and her adoptive country. This aspect of her life and career is highlighted in Françoise Giroud's Marie Curie: A Life, which emphasizes SkÅ‚odowska's role as a feminist precursor. She was ahead of her time, emancipated, independent, and in addition uncorrupted. Albert Einstein is supposed to have remarked that she was probably the only person who was not corrupted by the fame that she had won." She was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity, the only person honored with Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, and the first female professor at the University of Paris.

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