Marie Curie and the Discovery of Radium

Read and translate the text. Find the sentences in Perfect.

Read the situations and make sentences from the words in brackets.

I was very tired when I arrived home.

(I / work / hard / all day) I had been working hard all day.

1. Two men came into the house. They had a football and they were both very tired. (they / play / football)..............................................................................

2. There was nobody in the room but there was a smell of cigarettes.

(somebody / smoke / in the room).....................................................................

3. Alice woke up in the middle of the night. She was frightened and didn't know where she was. (she / dream).............................................................................

4. When I got home, Mary was sitting in front of the TV. She had just turned it off. (she / watch / TV).....................................................................................

11. Make questions with How long...?

Jimmy is on holiday. 1. Nick and Julia are in Mexico. 2. I know Olga. 3. Linda is learning Spanish. 4. My sister lives in Australia. 5. I'm an engineer. 6. It is snowing.

How long has he been on holiday? How lon................................................ How long..................... you................. ………………………………………… ………………………………………… ………………………………………… …………………………………………

12. Complete the sentences with for or since.

Jenny is in Scotland now. She arrived there five days ago. She has been there for five days.

1. John is here. He arrived here on Friday. He has ……………………….......…

2. It's raining. It started an hour ago. It's been …………………….....………….

3. I know Sally. I first met her three years ago. I've ………………….…………

4. I have a camera. I bought it in 2003. I've …………………………......………

5. They are married. They got married four months ago. They've ……………....

6. Jill is studying chemistry at university. She started two years ago. She has.…

7. Dima plays the guitar. He started when he was nine years old. Dima has …………………………………..................

13. Put the verb into the correct form: will be (do)ing or will have (done).

Don't phone me between 6 and 7. We 'll be having (we / have) dinner then.

1. Phone me after 7 o'clock..................................... (we / finish) dinner by then.

2. Tomorrow afternoon we're going to play tennis from 4 o'clock until 5.30. So at 5 o'clock........................................................................ (we / play) tennis.

3. A: Can we meet tomorrow morning?

B: Not in the morning.......................................................... (I / work).

4. В has to go to a meeting which begins at 11 o'clock. It will last about an hour.

A: Will you be free at 12.30?

B: Yes,............................................ (the meeting / finish) by that time.

5. Tony is on holiday and he is spending his money very quickly. If he continues like this,..................... (he / spend) all his money before the end of his holiday.

6. Sue came to Britain from the USA nearly two years ago. Next Tuesday it will be exactly two years. So on Tuesday,......................... (he / be) in Britain for exactly two years.

7. Do you think........................ (you / still / do) the same job in eight years' time?

8. Jack is from Ireland. He is traveling around Europe at the moment. So far he has traveled about 1,000 miles. By the end of the trip............... (he / travel) more than 3,000 miles.

9. If you need to contact me,.............. (I / stay) at the Richmond Arms Hotel until Saturday.

10. A:......................................................... (you / see) Liza tomorrow?

B: Yes, probably. Why?

A: I borrowed this journal from her. Can you give it back to her?

Marie Curie was born in Warsaw on 7 November, 1867. Her father was a teacher of science and mathematics in a school in the town, and from him little Marie Sklodowska – which was her Polish name – learned her first lessons in science¹. Marie's wish was to study at the Sorbonne in Paris, and after many years of waiting she finally left her native land in 1891.

In Paris Marie began a course of hard study and simple living. She determined to work for two Master's degrees – one in Physics, the other in Mathematics. Thus she had to work twice as hard as the ordinary student. Yet she had scarcely enough money to live on. She lived in the poorest quarter of Paris. Night after night, after her hard day’s work at the University, she got to her poorly furnished room and worked at her books steadily for hours. Sometimes she had no more than a bag of cherries. Though she was often weak and ill, she worked in this way for four years. She had chosen her course and nothing could turn her from it.

Among the many scientists Marie met and worked with in Paris was Pierre Curie. Pierre Curie, born in 1859 in Paris, was the son of a doctor, and from early childhood he had been fascinated by science. At sixteen he was a Bachelor of Science, and he took his Master's degree in Physics when he was eighteen. When he met Marie Sklodowska he was thirty-five years old and was famous throughout Europe for his discoveries in magnetism. But in spite of the honour he had brought to France by his discoveries, French Government could only give him a very little salary as a reward, and the University of Paris refused him a laboratory of his own for his researches.

Pierre Curie and Marie Sklodowska, both of whom loved science more than anything else, very soon became the closest friends. They worked together constantly and discussed many problems of their researches. After little more than a year they fell in love with each other, and in 1895 Marie Sklodowska became Mme. Curie. Theirs was not only to be a very happy marriage but also one of the greatest scientific partnerships.

Marie had been the greatest woman-scientist of her day but she was a mother too, a very loving one. There were their two little girls, Irene and Eve.

By this time Mme. Curie had obtained her Master's degree in Physics and Mathematics, and was busy with researches on steel. She now wished to obtain a Doctor's degree. For this it was necessary to offer to the examiners a special study, called a thesis.

For some time Pierre Curie had been interested in the work of a French scientist named Becquerel. There is a rare metal called uranium which, as Becquerel discovered, emits rays very much like X-rays. These rays made marks on a photographic plate when it was wrapped in black paper. The Curies got interested in these rays of uranium. What caused them? How strong were they? There were many such questions that puzzled Marie Curie and her husband. Here, they decided, was the very subject for Marie's Doctor's thesis.

The research was carried out under great difficulty. Mme. Curie had to use an old store-room at the University as her laboratory – she was refused a better room. It was cold, there was no proper apparatus and very little space for research work. Soon she discovered that the rays of uranium were like no other known rays.

Marie Curie wanted to find out if other chemical substances might emit similar rays. So she began to examine every known chemical substance. Once after repeating her experiments time after time she found that a mineral called pitchblende² emitted much more powerful rays than any she had already found.

Now, an element is a chemical substance which so far as is known cannot be split up into other substances. As Mme. Curie had examined every known chemical element and none of them had emitted such powerful rays as pitchblende she could only decide that this mineral must contain some new element.

Scientists had declared that every element was already known to them. But all Mme. Curie's experiments pointed that it was not so. Pitchblende must contain some new and unknown element. There was no other explanation for the powerful rays which it emitted. At that moment Pierre Curie stopped his own investigations on the physics of crystals and joined his wife in her effort to find those more active unknown chemical elements.

Scientists call the property of giving out such rays "radioactivity", and Mme. Curie decided to call the new element "radium", because it was more strongly radioactive than any known metal.

It is known now that Mme. Curie has given the real basis for the industrial methods of separating radium and other elements from the pitchblende and from other minerals.

In 1903 Marie and Pierre together with Henry Becquerel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

In 1911 Marie received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. But the second prize went to her alone for in 1908 Pierre had died tragically in a traffic accident.

Mme. Sklodowska-Curie, the leading woman-scientist, the greatest woman of her generation, has become the first person to receive a Nobel Prize twice.

Notes to the text

¹ science – зд. естественные науки

² pitchblende – уранит (урановая смолка)

Task. Answer the questions to the text:

1. In what country was Marie Curie born?

2. Who was her first teacher in science?

3. How old was Marie when she left her native land?

4. In what country did she study when a student?

5. How did she work?

6. How old was Marie when she met Pierre Curie?

7. How many years was Pierre older?

8. What can you say about Pierre's youth?

9. What was he famous for?

10. What was Marie interested in?

11. What did Becquerel discover?

12. What was the subject for Marie's Doctor's thesis?

13. What did the scientists declare?

14. Why did Marie Curie call the new element "radium"?

15. How old was Pierre Curie when he tragically died?

16. How many children did the Curies have?

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