Her mother Marie Skłodowska-Curie and she also form the only mother–daughter pair to have won Nobel Prizes[2] whilst Pierre and Irène Curie form the only father-daughter pair to have won Nobel Prizes by the same occasion, whilst six father-son pairs have won Nobel Prizes by comparison.[3]
She was also one of the first three women to be a member of a French government, becomingundersecretary for Scientific Research under thePopular Front in 1936.[4] Both children of the Joliot-Curies,Hélène andPierre, are also scientists.[5]
Irène was born in Paris, France, on 12 September 1897 and was the first ofMarie andPierre's two daughters. Her sister wasÈve, born in 1904.[6] They lost their father early on in 1906 due to a horse-drawn wagon incident, and Marie was left to raise them.[6] Education was important to Marie and Irène's education began at a school near the Paris Observatory.[7] This school was chosen because it had a more challenging curriculum than the school nearby the Curie's home.[7] In 1906, it was obvious Irène was talented in mathematics. Her mother chose to focus on that instead of public school.[7] Marie joined forces with a number of eminent French scholars, including the prominent French physicistPaul Langevin, to form "The Cooperative", which included a private gathering of nine students who were children of the most distinguished academics in France. Each contributed to educating these children in their respective homes.[7] The curriculum of The Cooperative was varied and included not only the principles of science and scientific research but also such diverse subjects as Chinese and sculpture, and with great emphasis placed on self-expression and play.[8] Irène studied in this environment for about two years.[9]
Irène and her sisterÈve were sent to Poland to spend the summer with their Aunt Bronia (Marie's sister) when Irène was thirteen.[6] Irène's education was so rigorous that she still had a German and trigonometry lesson every day of that break.[6] Irène re-entered a more orthodox learning environment by going back to high school at theCollège Sévigné in central Paris until 1914. She then went onto the Faculty of Science at theSorbonne to complete herbaccalaureate, until 1916 when her studies were interrupted byWorld War I.[9]
Irène took a nursing course during college to assist her mother, Marie Curie, in the field as her assistant.[10] She began her work as a nurse radiographer on the battlefield alongside her mother. After a few months she was left to work alone at a radiological facility in Belgium.[6] She taught doctors how to locate shrapnel in bodies using radiology and taught herself how to repair the equipment.[6] She moved throughout facilities and battlegrounds including two bombsites,Furnes andYpres, andAmiens.[6] She received a military medal for her assistance in X-ray facilities in France and Belgium.[7]
After the war, Irène returned to the Sorbonne in Paris to complete her second baccalaureate degree in mathematics and physics in 1918.[10] Irène then went on to work as her mother's assistant, teaching radiology at theRadium Institute, which had been built by her parents.[7][11] Her doctoral thesis was concerned with thealpha decay ofpolonium, the element discovered by her parents (along with radium) and named after Marie's country of birth, Poland. Irène became a Doctor of Science in 1925.[7]
As she neared the end of her doctorate in 1924, Irène Curie was asked to teach the precision laboratory techniques required for radiochemical research to the young chemical engineerFrédéric Joliot, whom she would later wed. From 1928, Joliot-Curie and her husband, Frédéric, combined their research efforts on the study of atomic nuclei.[11] In 1932, Joliot-Curie and her husband Frédéric had full access to Marie's polonium. Experiments were done using gamma rays to identify thepositron.[9] Though their experiments identified both thepositron and theneutron, they failed to interpret the significance of the results and the discoveries were later claimed byCarl David Anderson andJames Chadwick respectively.[11] These discoveries would have secured greatness indeed, as together withJ. J. Thomson's discovery of theelectron in 1897, they finally replacedJohn Dalton'smodel of atoms as solid spherical particles.[citation needed]
In 1933, Joliot-Curie and her husband were the first to calculate the accurate mass of the neutron.[11] The Joliot-Curies continued trying to get their name into the scientific community; in doing so, they developed a new theory from an interesting experiment they conducted. During an experiment bombarding aluminium with alpha rays, they discovered that only protons were detected. Based on the undetectable electron and positron pair, they proposed that the protons changed into neutrons and positrons.[11] Later in October 1933, this new theory was presented to the SeventhSolvay Conference. The Solvay Conferences consisted of prominent scientists in the physics and chemistry community.[11] Irene and her husband presented their theory and results to their fellow scientists, but they received criticism of their findings from most of the 46 scientists attending.[11] However, they were able to build on the controversial theory later on.[citation needed]
In 1934, the Joliot-Curies finally made the discovery that sealed their place in scientific history. Building on the work of Marie and Pierre Curie, who had isolated naturally occurring radioactive elements, the Joliot-Curies realised the alchemist's dream of turning one element into another: creating radioactivenitrogen fromboron, radioactive isotopes ofphosphorus from aluminium, andsilicon frommagnesium. Irradiating the natural stable isotope of aluminium withalpha particles (i.e. helium nuclei) resulted in anunstable isotope of phosphorus:27Al +4He →30P +1n.[12][13][14] This phosporus isotope is not found in nature and decays emitting a positron. This discovery is formally known aspositron emission orbeta decay, where a proton in the radioactive nucleus changes to a neutron and releases a positron and an electron neutrino. By then, the application of radioactive materials for use in medicine was growing, and this discovery allowed radioactive materials to be created quickly, cheaply, and plentifully. The Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935 brought with it fame and recognition from the scientific community and Joliot-Curie was awarded a professorship at the Faculty of Science.
The work that Irène's laboratory pioneered, research into radium nuclei, would also help another group of physicists within Germany.Otto Hahn andFritz Strassman on 19 December 1938 bombarded uranium with neutrons, but misinterpreted their findings.Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch would theoretically correct Hahn and Strassmann's findings, and after replicating their experiment based on Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard's theory that he had confided to Meitner back in 1933, confirmed on 13 January 1939 that Hahn and Strassmann had indeed observednuclear fission: the splitting of the nucleus itself, emitting vast amounts of energy. Lise Meitner's now-famous calculations actually disproved Irène's results and proved that nuclear fission was possible and replicable.[15]
In 1948, using work on nuclear fission, the Joliot-Curies, along with other scientists, created the first French nuclear reactor.[11][9] The Joliot-Curies were a part of the organization in charge of the project, the Atomic Energy Commission,Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA). Irène was the commissioner of the CEA, and Irène's husband, Frédéric, was the director of the CEA.[11] The reactor,Zoé (Zéro énergie Oxyde et Eau lourde) used nuclear fission to generate five kilowatts of power.[11][9] This was the beginning of nuclear energy as a source of power for France.
Years of working so closely with radioactive materials finally caught up with Joliot-Curie, and she was diagnosed withleukemia.[16][11] She had been accidentally exposed topolonium when a sealed capsule of the element exploded on her laboratory bench in 1946.[17] Treatment with antibiotics and a series of operations relieved her suffering temporarily, but her condition continued to deteriorate. Despite this, Joliot-Curie continued to work and in 1955 drew up plans for new physics laboratories at theOrsay Faculty of Sciences, which is now a part of theParis-Saclay University, south of Paris.[citation needed]
The Joliot-Curies had become increasingly aware of the growth of the fascist movement.[16][11] They opposed its ideals and joined theSocialist Party in 1934, theComité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes a year later, and in 1936 they actively supported theRepublican faction in theSpanish Civil War.[16] In the same year, Joliot-Curie was appointed Undersecretary of State for Scientific Research by the French government, in which capacity she helped in founding theCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique.[16]
Frédéric and Irène visited Moscow for the two hundred and twentieth anniversary of theRussian Academy of Science and returned sympathizing with Russian colleagues. Frédéric's close connection with theCommunist Party caused Irène to later be detained onEllis Island during her third trip to the US, coming to speak in support of Spanish refugees, at theJoint Antifascist Refugee Committee's invitation.[18]
The Joliot-Curies had continued Pierre and Marie's policy of publishing all of their work for the benefit of the global scientific community, but afraid of the danger that might result should it be developed for military use, they stopped: on 30 October 1939, they placed all of their documentation on nuclear fission in the vaults of the French Academy of Sciences, where it remained until 1949.[16]
Joliot-Curie's political career continued after the war and she became a commissioner in theCommissariat à l'énergie atomique.[16] However, she still found time for scientific work and in 1946 became director of her mother'sInstitut Curie.[16][11]
Joliot-Curie became actively involved in promoting women's education, serving on the National Committee of the Union of French Women (Comité National de l'Union des Femmes Françaises) and theWorld Peace Council. The Joliot-Curies were given memberships to the FrenchLégion d'honneur; Irène as an officer and Frédéric as a commander, recognising his earlier work for the resistance.[16][11]
Irène and Frédéric hyphenated their surnames to Joliot-Curie after they married in 1926. The Joliot-Curies had two children,Hélène, born eleven months after they were married, andPierre, born in 1932.[16]
Between 1941 and 1943, duringWorld War II, Joliot-Curie contractedtuberculosis and was forced to spend time convalescing in Switzerland.[16] Concern for her own health, together with the anguish of her husband's being in the resistance against the German troops and her children in occupied France, was hard to bear.[16] She did make several dangerous visits back to France, enduring detention by German troops at the Swiss border on more than one occasion. Finally, in 1944, Joliot-Curie judged it too dangerous for her family to remain in France and she took her children back to Switzerland.[16] Later in September 1944, after not hearing from Frédéric for months, Irene and her children were finally able to rejoin him.[16]
Irène fought through these struggles to advocate for her own personal views.[11] She was a passionate member of the feminist movement, especially regarding the sciences, and also advocated for peace. She continually applied to theFrench Academy of Sciences, an elite scientific organization, knowing that she would be denied. She did so to draw attention to the fact they did not accept women in the organization.[11] Irène was also involved in many speaking functions, such as the International Women's Day conference.[11] She also played a big role for the French contingent at theWorld Congress of Intellectuals for Peace, which promoted the World Peace movement.[11] In 1948, during a strike involving coal miners, Joliot-Curie reached out to Paris Newsletters to convince families to temporarily adopt the children of the coal miners during the strike. The Joliot-Curies adopted two girls during that time.[11]
In 1956, after a final convalescent period in the French Alps, Joliot-Curie was admitted to the Curie Hospital in Paris, where she died on 17 March at the age of 58 from leukemia, possibly due to radiation frompolonium-210.[19][20] Frédéric's health was also declining, and he died in 1958 from liver disease, which too was said to be the result of overexposure to radiation.[21]
Joliot-Curie was an atheist and anti-war.[16][22][23] When the French government held a national funeral in her honor, Irène's family asked to have the religious and military portions of the funeral omitted.[16] Frédéric was also given a national funeral by the French government.[16]
^Archives de l'état civil de Paris en ligne, acte de naissance no 13/2073/1897, avec mention marginale du décès. Autre mention : mariage en 1926 avec Jean Frédéric Joliot(in French) (consulté le 8 avril 2012)
^abcdefgShelley., Emling (21 August 2012).Marie Curie and her daughters : the private lives of science's first family (First ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 21.ISBN9780230115712.OCLC760974704.
^"Irene Joliet-Curie". Archived fromthe original on 14 July 2007. Retrieved19 October 2012. Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
^abcdeHicks, Jennifer (2006).Irène Joliot-Curie. Great Neck Publishing. pp. 1–2.ISBN9781429808248.
^abPatwardhan, Veena (27 March 2018). "Irene Joliot-Curie (1897–1956)".Chemical Industry Digest.
^abcdefghijklmnopqrsRayner-Canham, Marelene and Geoffrey (1997).Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity. MQUP. pp. 97–123.ISBN0941901157.
^abcdefghijklmnopqMcGrayne, Sharon Bertsch (1998).Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles, and Momentous Discoveries. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press. pp. 117–143.ISBN9780309072700.
^Zielinski, Sarah (3 October 2011)."Six Secrets of Polonium".Smithsonian Magazine.Archived from the original on 28 May 2023. Retrieved17 November 2023.
^Rayner-Canham, Marelene F. (1997).A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity. Philadelphia, Pa.: Chemical Heritage Foundation.ISBN978-0-7735-6658-3.OCLC191818978.
^"Q&A: Polonium-210".Chemistry World. Royal Society of Chemistry. 27 November 2006. Retrieved4 September 2008.
^Shelley, Emling (21 August 2012).Marie Curie and her daughters : the private lives of science's first family (First ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN9780230115712.OCLC760974704.
^"It was to her grandfather, a convinced freethinker, that Irène owed her atheism, later politically expressed as anticlericalism."Joliot-Curie, Irène. Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 17 March 2012.
