Biography of Pierre Curie

(1859-05-15 - 1906/04/19)

Pierre Curie
French physicist

He was born on May 15, 1859 in Paris.
He studied sciences at the Sorbonne. In 1880, together with his brother Jacques, he observed that an electrical potential occurs when pressure is exerted on a quartz crystal; It was called piezoelectricity. During subsequent studies on magnetism, he discovered that magnetic substances, at a certain temperature (known as the Curie point), lose their magnetism.
In 1895, he worked as a Professor of the School of physics and chemistry of Paris. In 1895 he married with the also Marie Curiephysics. He left his work on magnetism to join the investigation of his wife, and in 1898 marriage announced the discovery of two new elements: polonium (Marie gave him that name in honor of his native Poland) and the radio. In the next four years the Curie, working in very precarious conditions, they tried a ton of uraninite, which isolated a fraction of a gram radio.
In 1903 they shared with Becquerel the Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of radioactive elements. Marie Curie was the first woman to receive a Nobel. In 1904 it was named Professor of physics at the University of Paris, and in 1905 the French Academy Member.
Pierre Curie died in Paris on April 19, 1906, after being run over by a carriage.