Quiz on Marie Curie

In which scientific field did Marie Curie make her most famous discoveries?

• Radioactivity ✓ (Correct answer)
• Astronomy
• Geology
• Botany

Source: Marie Curie pioneered the study of radioactivity, a term she herself coined.

In which European capital did Marie Curie spend most of her career?

• Warsaw
• Vienna
• Berlin
• Paris ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: She moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne and stayed there for life.

Marie Curie was the first woman to receive which major honor?

• A knighthood
• A Nobel Prize ✓ (Correct answer)
• A doctorate
• A university chair

Source: She was the first woman ever to win a Nobel Prize, in Physics in 1903.

With whom did Marie Curie share her first Nobel Prize?

• Her daughter
• Henri Becquerel only
• Her husband ✓ (Correct answer)
• Albert Einstein

Source: She shared the 1903 Physics prize with husband Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel.

What was Marie Curie's nationality at birth?

• French
• Polish ✓ (Correct answer)
• Russian
• Austrian

Source: Born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, she only became French through naturalization.

Which prestigious university did Marie Curie attend and later teach at?

• Oxford
• Heidelberg
• The Sorbonne ✓ (Correct answer)
• Bologna

Source: She became the first woman professor at the University of Paris, the Sorbonne.

Which radioactive element did Marie Curie name after her home country?

• Radium
• Polonium ✓ (Correct answer)
• Uranium
• Thorium

Source: She named polonium after Poland, which was not an independent nation at the time.

Marie Curie remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in which two fields?

• Physics and Medicine
• Chemistry and Peace
• Physics and Chemistry ✓ (Correct answer)
• Medicine and Chemistry

Source: Her two Nobels were in Physics (1903) and Chemistry (1911), a unique double.

During World War I, Marie Curie helped develop mobile units for what purpose?

• Blood transfusion
• Vaccination
• Radio communication
• X-ray imaging ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: Her mobile X-ray vans, nicknamed 'petites Curies', helped surgeons locate shrapnel.

From which mineral ore did the Curies extract their radioactive elements?

• Pitchblende ✓ (Correct answer)
• Bauxite
• Cinnabar
• Galena

Source: They processed tons of pitchblende to isolate tiny amounts of radium.

For isolating which element did Marie Curie win her second Nobel Prize?

• Polonium
• Radon
• Actinium
• Radium ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: Her 1911 Chemistry prize honored the isolation of pure metallic radium.

What ultimately caused Marie Curie's death in 1934?

• Aplastic anemia ✓ (Correct answer)
• Tuberculosis
• A laboratory fire
• Pneumonia

Source: Years of radiation exposure caused the aplastic anemia that killed her.

Who was Marie Curie's daughter that also won a Nobel Prize?

• Eve
• Bronya
• Irene ✓ (Correct answer)
• Helena

Source: Irene Joliot-Curie won the 1935 Chemistry Nobel, extending the family legacy.

How did Pierre Curie, Marie's husband, die in 1906?

• Run over by a carriage ✓ (Correct answer)
• Radiation sickness
• A heart attack
• A laboratory explosion

Source: Pierre was killed in a Paris street, crushed under a horse-drawn cart's wheels.

Marie Curie's notebooks are still kept in lead-lined boxes because they are what?

• Extremely fragile
• Radioactive ✓ (Correct answer)
• Written in code
• Legally classified

Source: Her papers remain radioactive and will stay dangerous for over a thousand years.

In what unusual location did the Curies conduct much of their pioneering research?

• A grand laboratory
• A cave
• A converted shed ✓ (Correct answer)
• A hospital basement

Source: They worked in a leaky, poorly heated shed that a chemist called a 'cross between a stable and a potato cellar'.

Marie Curie refused to patent which of her contributions, keeping it freely available?

• The X-ray machine
• The Geiger counter
• The cyclotron
• The radium isolation process ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: She declined to patent radium extraction, believing science should belong to everyone.

Which institute, still a major cancer research center, did Marie Curie help found?

• The Radium Institute ✓ (Correct answer)
• The Pasteur Institute
• The Max Planck Institute
• The Karolinska Institute

Source: Her Radium Institute in Paris evolved into today's Institut Curie cancer hospital.

In 1995 Marie Curie became the first woman honored on her own merits in which French site?

• Notre-Dame
• The Pantheon ✓ (Correct answer)
• Les Invalides
• The Louvre

Source: Her remains were moved to the Pantheon, the first woman entombed there for her own achievements.

A scandal nearly cost Marie Curie her 1911 Nobel because of her relationship with whom?

• Henri Becquerel
• Ernest Rutherford
• Jean Perrin
• Paul Langevin ✓ (Correct answer)

Source: Her affair with physicist Paul Langevin sparked a press scandal just as she won her second Nobel.