Fighting against
discrimination Maria Sklodowska Curie
(1867-1934)
Story by
Mimoza Ristova
Physics Department
University in Skopje
Republic of Macedonia
27.04.2012
Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Once upon a time, the world of science and art was
inaccessible for women as nowadays the Vatican
Conclave and the Athos of Greece remain closed for
female human beings.
Athos
Vatican
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Let us not ever forget who made
the first footsteps in to the deep
masculine chauvinistic snow of
science?
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
What the scientific conferences looked
like before the phenomenon Marie
Sklodowska Curie appeared?
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Scientific conference in 1900
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Solvay–scientific council 1911
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Sоlvаy Conference -1913
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Solvay Conference 1921
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Sоlvаy Conference - 1933
Irene
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Marie
Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Lise
Meitner
Solvay Conference -1947
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Institute of Physics – Skopje -gender statistics
Временска база
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мажи
жени
In memoriam
95%
5%
Retired professors
65 %
35 %
Full Professors
60 %
40 %
Associated Professors
50 %
50 %
Assistant Professors
60 %
40 %
Manager positions at the
institute in last 10 years
60 %
40 %
Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
HISTORICAL,
POLITICAL AND
SOCIAL CONDITIONS
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Life in Poland
_______________________________
Russian occupation of Prussia
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Life in Poland
_____________________________
2000
1900
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Russian occupation
____________________________________________________

From capital city 1815 Warsaw became a
Russian provincial city under the rule of the
Russian Tsar.

Polish language was forbidden for public
use.

Sklodowski family was devoted to open
patriotism and cultural preservation.
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Mania was born on November 7th 1967 in
Warsaw
____________________________________
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
The Sklodowski’s children
_______________________________
Zosia, Maria (V child), Hela, Joseph, Bronia
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Education under nationalistic discrimination
______________________________________
Higher education in sciences
forbidden for polish students in the
Russian Empire!!!!!
Russian Tsar
Alexander II was
killed 1881 by
polish
revolutionary
students
Kosak’s parade after 1863
after defeating the revolution
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Depression (mental depleation)
____________________________________
Education was the driver in her life
Life in the country – years of happiness
recovering after 1 year
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Governance, tutor in the sugar factory and
illegal student of practical chemistry
_____________________________________________________________________
Mania & Bronia
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Kazimir Zorawski
Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Illegal “flying” universities in Poland
or
evening schools with variable address
____________________________________
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
1891 -1894
Marie at Sorbonne
____________________________
1893 - Master degree
in physics as a top
student in the class
and
1894 – master in
maths
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
To look for a job in Paris or to
return back to Poland?
____________________________
Facing difficulties in
magnetic
measurements, she
was introduced to
Pierre Curie
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Wedding 1895
Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Honey moon– tour de France
____________________________
Wedding gift
from Pierre
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
1897 – continuation of Becquerel's
findings
Key to the success:
Pierre and Jacque Curie’s
upgraded electrometer
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Experiments with U-salts
_______________________________
Becquerels hypotesis confirmed
U-salts with a greater U-content show
greater activity
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Is it only property of U?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________
She tested all the known elements.
 It was found that Th revealed the property.

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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Doctoral degree for Pierre and Marie
_________________________________________________________________
First lady
PhD in
France
Gabriel Lippmann
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Radioactivity is a property of atoms
_____________________
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1903
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1903 was
divided, one half awarded to Antoine Henri
Becquerel "in recognition of the
extraordinary services he has rendered by
his discovery of spontaneous
radioactivity",the other half jointly to Pierre
Curie and Marie Curie, née Sklodowska "in
recognition of the extraordinary services
they have rendered by their joint researches
on the radiation phenomena discovered by
Professor Henri Becquerel".
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Nobel Prize in Physics 1903
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Curies in wellbeing
1904 -Irene (8)
и Eve (1)
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Isolation of Ra and Po
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Ores containing Ra and Po
Charcoalit
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U- blend
Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Ores containing U-salts
1,4 g (Ra)
t1/2(Ra-226)=138,4 d
1 mg (Po)
1 t (U-ore)
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t1/2(Po-210)=1620 y
Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Laboratory work for Po -separation
___________________________________
U-blend + HCl(aq)
Clhorides in-sollution: U, Th, Pb, Cu, As, Sb, Bi, X + H2S(aq)
Sulphides : Pb, Cu, As, Sb, Bi, X + (NH4)2S
As & Sb in Sol, while the deposit contains Pb, Cu, Bi, X+
NH3(aq)+ HCl(aq)
Cu in sol, in deposit remain hydroxides
Pb, Bi, X + HCl(aq) + H2S(aq)
Deposit of sulfides : Pb, Bi, X (sublimation at700oC)
Sulfide XS = PoS
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Two new elements - Po84 and Ra88
_________________________
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Short term happiness followed by trauma
____________________________
Pierre Curi (1859-1906)
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
The years of loneliness
____________________________
…“Broken in pain, I wasn’t feeling
ready to face the future. However,
I could never forget what my
husband said, that even if one day
HE IS GONE,
I should continue with our work…”
Picture she
inserted in to
Pierre’s coffin
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
1906 –First woman to establish
a laboratory at Sorbonne
____________________________
Andre Debierne the
assistant who help the
prove that Ra is an
element.
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
New deep snow
French Academy of Science
Curie vs. Brannlie
____________________________
Weather one female should enter the Academy?
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Victim of a French Xenophobia of
ultranationalist press
_______________________________
Marie is Jewish??!!!
Racist analysis of her
facial features and the
handwriting
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Stigmatization in the media
_______________________________________________________________
Time adjusted eruption
of the scandal related
to her love affaire with
Paul Langevain,
former Pierre’s bright
student.
Paul Langevain
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Victim of sexism
(gender discrimination in the FAS)
NO! For M-me Curie
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YES! For Mr. Brannlie
Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Criteria for election (MORE .....).
____________________________
Is it that Branlie was appointed to FAS
because he was
MORE FRANCH
MORE CHATOLIC
MORE MAN
than Marie Sklodowska Curie????
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
1911 – Exile before the ruthless “crucifixion”
of the public opinion
______________________________________
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911
____________________________
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911 was
awarded to Marie Curie "in recognition of
her services to the advancement of
chemistry by the discovery of the
elements radium and polonium, by the
isolation of radium and the study of the
nature and compounds of this remarkable
element".
27.04.2012
Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
New depression
____________________________
Was that a to big snow caused by the the
gender chauvinism, anti-Semitism (?),
nationalism ???
All of those discriminations at a same time!!??
27.04.2012
Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
..Than she was married to the Radium
laboratory..
____________________________
Irene and Marie Curie
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Illness –victim of professional
exposure and painful death (1934)
_______________________________________________________________________________
Pantheon - Paris
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
PANTHEON
AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE
"To the great men, the grateful homeland"
The first woman to be buried
in Pantheon by her own merit
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
The Curie Unit (1Ci)
_________________________
Activity

1 Ci = 3.7 x 1010 decays in one second
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
The name Curie
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Google – login page from 07.11.2011
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
The champion in many
disciplines
__________________
Who was the first female Nobel Prize winner?
Who was the first female PhD in France?
Who was the first female to establish a lab in
Sorbonne?
Who was the first woman professor in France?
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Who was the first to win 2 Nobel prizes in
different fields?
Who was a female Nobel Prize Winner be a
mother of another female Nobel PW?
Who was so unique to infect the close family
to win 6 Nobel Prizes?
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Who won the so many battles against so
many different types of discrimination?
__________________________________
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Top 10 most influential scientists
of all times (pole 2000)
__________________________________________________________
1. Isaac Newton
2. Luis Pasteur
3. Albert Einstein
4. Galileo
5. Nikola Tesla
6. Marie Curie
7. Aristotle
8. Enrrico Fermi
9. Paul Dirac
10.Charles Darwin
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
Instead of conclusion
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
It is not really easy to step first ....
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
... but, than again, it is easier to know
that you have followers
_________________________________
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Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
However, this is simply easiest way...
______________________
27.04.2012
Mimoza Ristova -Maria Curie-RAD-2012
The end