DISCOVERER OF RADIUM.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 139, 16 June 1906, Page 1

DISCOVERER OF RADIUM.

TRAGIC DEATH OF PROFESSOR

CURIE IN PARIS

PARIS, April 19

Professor Curie, the famous scientist, who was co-discoverer with Mine. Curie, his wife, of radium, was killed in a street accident to-day. He was walking in the Rue Dauphine, and in trying to pasis two people who wore standing on the footpath his i:cot" slipped on the kerbstone, and he fell to the ground. One of the wheels of a heavy waggon., belonging to tiio Army .Service Uorps, pa^od ever hi.s head, killing him iiistautly. .His body was removed to the ambulance station at th» Mint closo L>y. He was only i'orty-:~bc years old. There is :.i (loop loucii oi pathos in this Hiiddon and tragic ending to iJrofessor Curie's career. l\v. and his wife, who is a Pole and a woman or rare talents, .sacrificed all their spare time and money in arduous scientific research. When they iivat met, M. Curio was a professor in a .';: nail technical college in Paris, and Marie Skidowska a.s she was then, was a toucher ot' science to young women in the French capital. The .--iuular nature of their research work brought them frequently together, and they fell in love with each other and married. They lived in a little cottage, and here, when not engaged in their professional duties, they devoted thei.- time and energy to working Mine. Curie's theory that uranium contained tome mysterious metal which had not yet boon discovered. They spent all their spare money in working together for this one object. They shunned society; they did not travel; they wore the plainest of garments, and at times their seli'-sacrifics brought them to the point, of starvation. Their reward came in 1900. At the Paris Exhibition there was shown under .a watch-glass a little greyish powder. It was marked " Radium, discovered by Mme. Curie." A few days later the powder had to be taken away, as it played havoc with rare chemicals in the vicinity. The exhibit attracted but little notice, and it was not until 1902 that the' scientific world was startled to hear that radium -continuously produced heat without combustion, without chemical change of any kind; that it gave continuous light; and that it was worth 300,000 times its weight in pure gold. . M. and Mme. Curie received congratulations from all parts of the world. The Nobel prize was awarded to them, and they spent it in further research, while the Davy medal was presented to them jointly"by the Royal Institution of London.