Pierre Curie

Hello! My name is Pierre Curie, and I was a scientist who loved discovering the world's secrets. I was born in a beautiful city called Paris, France, on May 15th, 1859. Instead of going to a big school, I learned all about math and science at home from my father. I loved it! When I grew up a bit, I worked with my brother, Jacques. In 1880, we discovered something amazing about crystals—that if you squeezed them just right, they could create a tiny bit of electricity!

In 1894, my life changed when I met a brilliant student named Maria Skłodowska. She had come to Paris to study science, and she was just as curious as I was! We loved talking about science and working on experiments together. We quickly became best friends and science partners. A year later, on July 26th, 1895, we got married, and she became the famous Marie Curie. Our laboratory was our favorite place to be.

Marie and I started studying mysterious, invisible rays coming from a type of rock. Marie gave this amazing power a name: 'radioactivity.' We spent years in our little shed, stirring big bubbling pots of a dark, heavy mineral to find out where the rays came from. It was very hard work! But in 1898, our hard work paid off. We discovered two brand-new elements that had never been seen before! We named them polonium and radium. Radium was extra special because it actually glowed in the dark! Our discovery was so important that in 1903, Marie, another scientist, and I won a famous award called the Nobel Prize in Physics.

I had a wonderful life filled with family, love, and discovery, but it came to an end after an accident in 1906. I lived to be 46 years old. Marie bravely continued our important work after I was gone. Today, people remember us as a scientific team whose curiosity helped light up the world with new ideas. Our discoveries about radioactivity have been used to help doctors treat sick people and to create new ways of making energy.