Marie Curie - Kathleen Krull [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE - The Gold-Medal Girl
CHAPTER TWO - The Pact
CHAPTER THREE - Magnetic Attraction
CHAPTER FOUR - Mr. and Mrs. Radioactive
CHAPTER FIVE - The Legend Begins
CHAPTER SIX - Suddenly Famous
CHAPTER SEVEN - Shock
CHAPTER EIGHT - Embarrassment—on a National Scale
CHAPTER NINE - War Heroine
CHAPTER TEN - Madame Curie
CHAPTER ELEVEN - Genius Genes
CHAPTER TWELVE - How She Changed the World
BIBLIOGRAPHY
WEB SITES
INDEX
Straightforward and
Brilliant Thinking
Now that she’d measured the amount of radiation given off by uranium, the next question was: Did other elements besides uranium emit these strange rays? The only way to find out was to examine all the known elements.
Very persuasive when she needed something for her work, Marie begged and borrowed samples of elements from other scientists, including some of her old professors. She now went through Mendeleyev’s periodic table of elements, testing them one by one. The mystery rays weren’t just peculiar to uranium—she discovered that they came in a weaker form from thorium (a mineral element discovered in 1828) as well. Her findings were that only the elements uranium and thorium gave off this radiation.
In April of 1898, Marie made a report to the all-important French Academy of Sciences. The eminent men at the meeting listened to a report on frog larvae. Then Marie’s report, called “Rays Emitted by Uranium and Thorium Compounds,” was read aloud by one of her professors. She couldn’t read it herself because she wasn’t a member—no women were allowed.
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First published in the United States of America by Viking, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2007
Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2009
Text copyright © Kathleen Krull, 2007
Illustrations copyright © Boris Kulikov, 2007
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Krull, Kathleen.
Marie Curie / by Kathleen Krull ; illustrated by Boris Kulikov. p. cm.—(Giants of science)
eISBN : 978-1-101-02477-5
1. Curie, Marie, 1867-1934. 2. Women chemists—Poland—Biography—Juvenile literature. 3. Women chemists—France—Biography—Juvenile literature. 4. Chemists—Poland—Biography Juvenile literature. 5. Chemists—France—Biography—Juvenile literature.
I. Kulikov, Boris. II. Title.
QD22.C8K.92—dc22 [B] 2007024251
Set in Kennerly H
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To Caitlin Krull, future neurosurgeon
—K.K.
Acknowledgments
For help with research,
the author thanks Dr. Lawrence M. Principe
Special thanks to Janet Pascal, Patricia Daniels,
Robert Burnham and Patricia Laughlin,
Frédérique Moursi, Paul Brewer, Cindy Clevenger
and the Rabbits, and most of all,
Jane O‘Connor.
INTRODUCTION
“If I have seen further [than other people] it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”
—Isaac Newton, 1675
SHE RISKED HER