Alcester U3A

10:23am Wednesday 9th July 2008

THE replacement speaker for the July meeting was Ann Brown from Hall Green U3A and her most interesting talk was entitled Marie and Pierre Curie.

Marie was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland and she became a governess whilst also studying science. Eventually she enrolled at The Sorbonne in Paris researching metals and met Pierre Curie there who was studying magnetism.

In 1895 they married and in 1896 they investigated radio activity which laid the foundation for nuclear physics.

Their first daughter was born in 1897 and later she, with her husband Frederic Joliot, was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935. Marie and Pierre Curie were awarded the Nobel Prize for physics jointly with Henri Becquerel in 1903. In 1906 Pierre was tragically killed in a road accident in Paris.

A second Nobel Prize went to Marie in1911 for her discovery of radium, although by this time she was frequently ill but managed to spend time in America fund raising. She died in 1934 of leukaemia.

The talk was illustrated with slides and Mary Jenkins gave the vote of thanks.

The next meeting on August 5 will take the form of a debate, the motion being "This house believes life was better in the 1950s".

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