![]() Though I was happy in France, I returned to England in 1949 for a fellowship at King’s College, which allowed me to analyze DNA using the x-ray crystallization technique I had become proficient in in Paris. I received my PhD in 1945.Īfter the war, I took a position at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimique de l’Etat in Paris and learned how to analyze carbons using x-ray crystallography, a powerful technique for determining the structure of molecules. I received a grant from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research to continue my studies, and my focus became the micro-structures of various coals and carbons. In 1938, I entered Newnham College at Cambridge University, where I earned my BA. I was always good at science and attended one of the only girls’ schools in London that taught physics and chemistry. I was born in London to a prominent Jewish family. Throughout my life I promoted the use of radium to alleviate suffering and even designed mobile X-ray units that could be used to diagnose injuries during World War I. In 1906, Pierre was killed in a tragic accident, but I continued our laboratory work and eventually took on his teaching role, becoming the first female professor in the Sorbonne’s history. We didn’t know it at the time, but we both suffered from what is now known as radiation sickness, and we were not able to travel to Sweden to receive our Nobel Prize in 1903. Our efforts resulted in the discovery of two new elements – polonium and radium – but the arduous work took a toll on our health. Our research was performed under difficult conditions isolating the different elements in the pitchblende required cooking it in huge pots and then grinding it into a powder. We figured there must be something else in the pitchblende that was increasing the level of radiation. Our testing of pitchblende, which contains uranium ore, revealed that it was more radioactive than uranium itself. Together, we began our exploration into the invisible rays given off by uranium. While in Paris, I met Pierre Curie, who became my husband and research partner. Times were hard, but I graduated from high school with top grades when I was 15 and went to the Sorbonne in Paris to continue my studies. The year I turned 10, my mother died, and my father lost his job. ![]() My father had a cabinet of scientific instruments at the house, and I remember being extremely curious about them even as a little girl. I was born in Warsaw, Poland, to two teachers. When he's not seeking answers to the secrets of the Universe, Manuel loves snowboarding. With a more powerful machine than ever before, and teams like Manuel’s on the case, what great discovery awaits!? Protons and electrons are huge compared to what they’re looking at.quarks and gluons in the plasma “fireballs” are fundamental building blocks of all matter and crucial to figuring out their impact on the Standard Model of Physics. ![]() Manuel’s team smashes the nuclei of two atoms into one another at super high energies (trillions of electronvolts each), forming tiny fireballs that act as recreations of the Universe right after the Big Bang. Today, Manuel is a professor and researcher with the UC Davis Physics department where he is seeking to understand the Universe through a field called Quantum Chromodynamics (don’t let the big scientific name scare you-this is pretty cool stuff). At a certain point, he says he realized that, “the math was not just leading you to solve a clever puzzle, but it was telling you something about how things in nature behaved, how nature worked.” Born in Mexico City, Professor Manuel Calderon de la Barca Sanchez is the son of a tenacious father who believed in the value of education and a mother who always encouraged him “to spread his wings and follow his dreams.” As a child, Manuel wanted to be a firefighter and loved video games and computers but soon grew to love math, especially as it related to physics.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |