Pierre Curie
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Pierre Curie (Paris, France, May 15, 1859 – April 19, 1906, Paris) was a French physicist.
He shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics with his wife, Marie Curie and Henri Becquerel
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[change] Work
Pierre Curie is not as well known as Marie Curie. But Pierre and his brother did a lot of important work before Pierre married and started working with his wife Marie Curie. They were the first to use the term "radioactivity," and were pioneers in its study. Pierre and his brother Jacques built a special meter for measuring small amounts of electricity which Pierre and Marie used in their other discoveries.
Pierre died after a carriage accident in Paris on April 19, 1906. His head crushed under the wheels. If he had lived he would probably have died by radiation poisoning as Marie did. As they were the first to study radioactivity they did not know how dangerous it was.
After Pierre's death a group of scientists at the Radiology Congress decided to honour him by naming the unit of radioactivity a curie.
[change] Children
Pierre and Marie Curie's daughter Irène Joliot-Curie and their son-in-law Frédéric Joliot-Curie were also physicists involved in the study of radioactivity, and were also awarded the Nobel prize for their work. Their other daughter Eve wrote her mother's biography. His grand-daughter Hélène Langevin-Joliot is a professor of nuclear physics at the University of Paris and his grandson, Pierre Joliot, who was named after him, is a noted biochemist.
[change] Prizes
- Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
- Davy Medal (1903)
- Matteucci Medal (1904)
[change] Other Websites
