MAGURA: The 80th death anniversary of two-time Noble Prize winner Madam Curie was observed here on Wednesday with due respect and in a befitting manner.

Magura Zila Biggan Andolon Mancha organized a discussion and documentary show on Madam Curie’s life at the arts building of the Magura Government College in the morning to mark the day.

Engineer Shampa Basu, Professor Krishna Pada Bhatcahrchay, Shovo Saha, and Rohan Islam were among others present on the occasion.

Marie Curie was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, the daughter of a secondary-school teacher. She received a general education in local schools and some scientific training from her father. 

In 1891, she went to Paris to continue her studies at the Sorbonne where she obtained Licenciateships in Physics and the Mathematical Sciences. She met Pierre Curie, Professor in the School of Physics in 1894 and in the following year they were married.

She succeeded her husband as Head of the Physics Laboratory at the Sorbonne, gained her Doctor of Science degree in 1903, and following the tragic death of Pierre Curie in 1906, she took his place as Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences, the first time a woman had held this position. 

She was also appointed Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, founded in 1914.

Together with her husband, she was awarded half of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903, for their study into the spontaneous radiation discovered by Becquerel, who was awarded the other half of the Prize.

In 1911 she received a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, in recognition of her work in radioactivity.

She also received, jointly with her husband, the Davy Medal of the Royal Society in 1903 and, in 1921, President Harding of the United States, on behalf of the women of America, presented her with one gram of radium in recognition of her service to science.

Curie died in Savoy, France, after a short illness, on July 4, 1934.

BDST: 1745 HRS JUL 09, 2014