Pierre Curie

Born in Paris on May 15, 1859, Pierre Curie was educated largely at home before studying science at the Sorbonne. Long before his Nobel Prize, he had already built a reputation as an original and gifted researcher, especially through work on crystals, magnetism, and—together with his brother Jacques—the discovery of piezoelectricity, the electrical effect produced by pressure on certain crystals.

In the 1890s he began working closely with Marie Sklodowska, whom he married in 1895. Their scientific partnership became one of the most famous in history: together they investigated radioactive substances, and Pierre shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Marie Curie and Henri Becquerel for their research on radiation phenomena. Their work helped open an entirely new field of science.

He died in Paris on April 19, 1906, after a street accident, at just 46 years old. Even so, his influence remained enormous: the Curie name became inseparable from the early history of radioactivity, and his careful experimental style helped shape the standards of modern physical science.