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Article: Women at the table.(physicists)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Evening Standard (London, England)
- Article date:
- November 1, 2000
- Author:
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A few women became famous for their investigations of the elements; other women's contributions are little-known even today.
Marie Sklodowowska Curie (1867-1934) conquered poverty and discrimination to become a physicist. Together with her husband, Pierre Curie, she discovered two unstable elements: polonium, named after her native country of Poland, and radium. She coined the word "radioactivity" to describe one of these elements' characteristics.
Marie Curie won two Nobel Prizes for her scientific achievements -- but she later died from the radiation poisoning she had acquired during her experiments.
Lise Meitner (1878-1968), together with ...