Marie Curie

Marie Curie

Marie Skłodowska–Curie

Her achievements include the creation of a theory of radioactivity (a term coined by her[2]), techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two new elements, polonium and radium. It was also under her personal direction that the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms (cancers), using radioactive isotopes. While an actively loyal French citizen, she never lost her sense of Polish identity. She named the first new chemical element that she discovered (1898) polonium for her native country,[3] and in 1932 she founded a Radium Institute (now the Maria Skłodowska–Curie Institute of Oncology) in her home town Warsaw, headed by her physician-sister Bronisława. Early life

Born

7 November 1867 Warsaw, Vistula Country, Russian Empire

Died

4 July 1934 (aged 66) Passy, France

Citizenship

Russian, later French

Nationality

Polish

Fields

physics, chemistry

Institutions

University of Paris

Alma mater

University of Paris ESPCI

Doctoral advisor

Henri Becquerel André-Louis Debierne

Doctoral students

Óscar Moreno Marguerite Catherine Perey

Known for

radioactivity, polonium, radium

Dołęga coat-of-arms, hereditary in Skłodowska's family Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867, the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers Bronisława and Władysław Skłodowski. Maria's older siblings were Zofia (born 1862), Józef (1863), Bronisława (1865) and Helena (1866). Maria's grandfather Józef Skłodowski had been a respected teacher in Lublin, where he had taught the young Bolesław Prus.[4] Her father Władysław Skłodowski taught mathematics and physics, subjects that Maria was to pursue, and was director successively of two Warsaw gymnasia for boys, in addition to lodging boys in the family home. Her mother, Bronisława, operated a prestigious Warsaw girls' boarding school; she suffered from tuberculosis and died when Maria was twelve. Maria's father was an atheist, and her mother a devout Catholic.[5] Two years earlier, Maria's oldest sibling, Zofia, had died of typhus. The deaths of her mother and sister, according to Robert William Reid, caused Maria to give up Catholicism and become agnostic.[6] When she was ten years old, Maria began attending the boarding school that her mother had operated while she was well; next Maria attended a female gymnasium, from which she graduated on 12 June 1883. She spent the following year in the countryside at her father's relatives, and next with her father in Warsaw, where she did some tutoring.

Nobel Prize in Physics (1903) Notable awards

Davy Medal (1903) Matteucci Medal (1904)

On both the paternal and maternal sides, the family had lost their property and fortunes through patriotic involvements in Polish national uprisings. This condemned each subsequent generation, including that of Maria and her elder sisters and brother, to a difficult struggle to get ahead in life.[7]

Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911) Religious stance

Agnostic

Notes She is the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two sciences. She was the wife of Pierre Curie, and the mother of Irene Joliot-Curie and Ève Curie. Marie Skłodowska Curie (November 7, 1867 – July 4, 1934) was a physicist and chemist of Polish upbringing and, subsequently, French citizenship. She was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity, the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes,[1] and the first female professor at the University of Paris. She was born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw (then Vistula Country, Russian Empire; now Poland) and lived there until she was 24. In 1891 she followed her elder sister Bronisława to study in Paris, where she obtained her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and Warsaw. Her husband Pierre Curie was a Nobel co-laureate of hers, and her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie and son-in-law Frédéric Joliot-Curie also received Nobel prizes.

Krakowskie Przedmieście 66, near Warsaw's Old Town (in the distance). As noted on the plaque, it was here, in 1890–91, that Maria Skłodowska did her first scientific work. Maria made an agreement with her sister Bronisława, that she would give her financial assistance during Bronisława's medical studies in Paris, in exchange for similar assistance two years later.[8] In connection with this, she took a position as governess. First with a lawyer's family in Kraków, then for two years in Ciechanów with a landed family, the Żorawskis, relatives of her father. While working for the latter family, she fell in love with their son Kazimierz Żorawski, which the future eminent mathematician reciprocated. His parents, however, rejected the idea of his marrying the penniless relative, and Kazimierz was unable to oppose them. Maria lost her governess' position. [9] She found another with the Fuchs family in Sopot, on the Baltic Sea coast, where she spent the next year, all the while financially assisting her sister.

Kazimierz Żorawski in later life

At the beginning of 1890, Bronisława, who had a few months earlier married Kazimierz Dłuski, invited Maria to join them in Paris. Maria declined because she could not afford the university tuition and was still counting on marrying Kazimierz Żorawski. She returned home to her father, with whom she remained till the fall of 1891, tutoring, studying at the clandestine Floating University, and beginning her practical scientific training in a laboratory at the Museum of Industry and Agriculture run by her cousin Józef Boguski, who had been assistant in St. Petersburg to the great Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev.[10] In October 1891, at her sister's insistence and after receiving a letter from Żorawski definitively breaking up with her, she decided to go to France after all.[5] Maria's breakup with Żorawski was tragic for both. He soon earned a doctorate and pursued an academic career as a mathematician, becoming a professor and rector of Kraków University and president of the Warsaw Society of Learning; still, as an old man, a mathematics professor at the Warsaw Polytechnic, he would sit contemplatively in front of the statue of Maria Skłodowska before the Radium Institute that she had founded.[11] Maria, in Paris, briefly found shelter with her sister and brother-in-law before renting a primitive garret [12] and proceeding with her studies of physics, chemistry and mathematics at the Sorbonne (the University of Paris). Sorbonne Pierre Curie Skłodowska studied during the day, and she tutored evenings, barely earning her keep. In 1893 she obtained a degree in physics and began work in an industrial laboratory at Lippman's. Meanwhile she continued studying at the Sorbonne and in 1894 earned a degree in mathematics. In the same year Pierre Curie entered her life. He was an instructor in the School of Physics and Chemistry, the École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI). Skłodowska had begun her scientific career in Paris with an investigation of the magnetic properties of various steels; it was their mutual interest in magnetism that drew Skłodowska and Curie together. Her departure for the summer to Warsaw only enhanced their mutual feelings for each other. She was still laboring under the illusion that she would be able to return to Poland and work in her chosen field of study. When, however, she was denied a place at Kraków University merely because she was a woman,[14] she returned to Paris. Almost a year later, in July 1895, she and Pierre Curie married, and thereafter the two physicists hardly ever left their laboratory. Their shared hobbies were only long bicycle trips and journeys abroad, which brought them even closer. Maria had found a new love, a partner and scientific collaborator that she could depend on.[15] New elements In 1896 Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium salts emitted rays that resembled X-rays in their penetrating power. He demonstrated that this radiation, unlike phosphorescence, did not depend on an external source of energy but seemed to arise spontaneously from uranium itself. Becquerel had in fact discovered radioactivity. Skłodowska–Curie decided to look into uranium rays as a possible field of research for a thesis. She used a clever technique to investigate samples. Fifteen years earlier, her husband and his brother had invented the electrometer, a device for measuring extremely low electrical currents. Using the Curie electrometer, she discovered that uranium rays caused the air around a sample to conduct electricity.[16] Her first result, using this technique, was the finding that the activity of the uranium compounds depended only on the amount of uranium present. She had shown that the radiation was not the outcome of some interaction between molecules but must come from the atom itself. In scientific terms, this was the most important single piece of work that she carried out.[17]

Skłodowska–Curie's systematic studies had included two uranium minerals, pitchblende and torbernite. Her electrometer showed that pitchblende was four times as active as uranium itself, and chalcolite twice as active. She concluded that, if her earlier results relating the amount of uranium to its activity were correct, then these two minerals must contain small amounts of some other substance far more active than uranium itself.[18] The idea [writes Reid] was her own; no one helped her formulate it, and although she took it to her husband for his opinion she clearly established her ownership of it. She later recorded the fact twice in her biography of her husband to ensure there was no chance whatever of any ambiguity. It [is] likely that already at this early stage of her career [she] realized that... many scientists would find it difficult to believe that a woman could be capable of the original work in which she was involved.[19] In her systematic search for other substances besides uranium salts that emitted radiation, Skłodowska–Curie had found that the element thorium was likewise radioactive.

Pierre and Marie Curie in their Paris lab, before 1907 She was acutely aware of the importance of promptly publishing her discoveries and thus establishing her priority. Had Becquerel, two years earlier, not presented his discovery to the Académie des Sciences the day after he made it, credit for the discovery of radioactivity, and even a Nobel Prize, would instead have gone to Silvanus Thompson. Skłodowska–Curie chose the same rapid means of publication. Her paper, giving a brief, simple account of her work, was presented for her to the Académie on April 12, 1898, by her former professor, Gabriel Lippmann.[20] Even so, just as Thompson had been beaten by Becquerel, so Skłodowska– Curie was beaten in the race to tell of her discovery that thorium gives off rays in the same way as uranium. Two months earlier, Gerhard Schmidt had published his own finding in Berlin.[21] No one else in the world of physics had, however, yet noticed what Skłodowska–Curie recorded in a sentence of her paper in describing how much greater were the activities of pitchblende and chalcolite compared with uranium itself: "The fact is very remarkable, and leads to the belief that these minerals may contain an element which is much more active than uranium." She would later recall how she felt "a passionate desire to verify this hypothesis as rapidly as possible."[22] Pierre Curie was sure that what she had discovered was not a spurious effect. He was so intrigued that he decided to temporarily drop his work on crystals and join her. On 14 April 1898, they optimistically weighed out a 100-gram sample of pitchblende and ground it with a pestle and mortar. They did not then realize that what they were searching for was present in such minute quantities that they would eventually have to process tons of the ore.[23] In July 1898, Skłodowska–Curie and her husband together published a paper announcing the existence of an element which they named "polonium," in honor of her native Poland, which would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires. On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named "radium" for its intense radioactivity — a word that they coined. Pitchblende is a complex mineral, and the chemical separation of its constituents was an arduous task. The discovery of polonium had been relatively easy; chemically it resembles the element bismuth, and polonium was the only bismuth-like substance in the ore. But radium was more elusive; it is closely related chemically to barium, and pitchblende contains both elements. By 1898 the Curies had obtained traces of radium, but appreciable quantities, uncontaminated with barium, were still beyond reach.[24] The Curies undertook the arduous task of separating out radium salt by differential crystallization. From a ton of pitchblende, one-tenth of a gram of radium chloride was separated in 1902. By 1910 Skłodowska–Curie, working

on without her husband, who had been killed in 1906, had isolated the pure radium metal.[25]

previously have been weakened by prolonged radiation exposure, it has not been proven that this was the cause of the accident.

In an unusual decision, Marie Skłodowska–Curie intentionally refrained from patenting the radium-isolation process so that the scientific community could do research unhindered.[26]

Skłodowska–Curie was devastated by her husband's death. She noted that as of that moment she had suddenly become "an incurably and wretchedly lonely person." On May 13, 1906, the Sorbonne physics department decided to retain the chair that had been created for Pierre Curie and entrusted it to Skłodowska– Curie together with full authority over the laboratory. This allowed her to emerge from Pierre's shadow. She became the first female professor at the Sorbonne, and sought in her exhausting work regime a meaning for her life.

Since they were unaware of the deleterious effects of radiation exposure attendant on their chronic unprotected work with radioactive substances, Skłodowska–Curie and her husband had no idea what price they were paying for their research.[15] In 1903, under the supervision of Henri Becquerel,[27] Marie received her DSc from the University of Paris. Nobel Prizes

Maria's 1911 Nobel Prize photo In 1903, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel." Skłodowska–Curie and her husband were unable to go to Stockholm to receive the prize in person, but they shared its financial proceeds with needy acquaintances, including students.[15] On receiving the Nobel Prize, Marie and Pierre Curie suddenly became very famous. The Sorbonne gave Pierre a professorship and permitted him to establish his own laboratory, in which Skłodowska–Curie became director of research.

Maria Skłodowska–Curie's 1911 Nobel Prize diploma In 1897 and 1904, respectively, Skłodowska–Curie gave birth to their daughters, Irène and Eve Curie. She would later hire Polish governesses to teach them her native language, and send or take them on visits to Poland.[28] Skłodowska–Curie was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. Eight years later, she would receive the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, "in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element." A month after accepting her 1911 Nobel Prize, she was hospitalized with depression and a kidney ailment. Skłodowska–Curie was the first person to win or share two Nobel Prizes. She is one of only two people who have been awarded a Nobel Prize in two different fields, the other being Linus Pauling (Chemistry, Peace). Nevertheless in 1911 the French Academy of Sciences refused to abandon its prejudice against women and she failed by two votes to be elected to membership, losing to Édouard Branly, an inventor who had helped Guglielmo Marconi develop the wireless telegraph.[29] It would be her doctoral student, Marguerite Perey, who would be the first woman elected to the Academy — in 1962, over half a century later.

Paul Langevin in later life Recognition for her work now grew to a crescendo, and in 1911 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded her a second Nobel Prize. A delegation of celebrated Polish men of learning, headed by world-famous novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz, besought her to return to Poland and continue her research in her native country.[15] In 1911, too, it transpired that in 1910–11 Skłodowska–Curie had conducted an affair of about a year's duration with physicist Paul Langevin, an ex-student of Pierre Curie's[30]—a married man who had left his wife. This resulted in a press scandal, exploited by her academic opponents. Despite her fame as a scientist working for France, the public's attitude tended toward xenophobia—the same that had led to the Dreyfus Affair and that now fueled false speculation that Skłodowska–Curie was Jewish. Five years Langevin's senior, she was portrayed in the tabloids as a home-wrecker.[31] Later, Skłodowska–Curie's granddaughter, Hélène Joliot, would marry Langevin's grandson, Michel Langevin. Skłodowska–Curie's second Nobel Prize, in 1911, enabled her to talk the French government into funding the building of a private Radium Institute (Institut du radium, now the Institut Curie), which was built in 1914 and at which research was conducted in chemistry, physics and medicine. The Institute became a cradle of Nobel Prize winners, producing four more, including her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie and her son-in-law, Frédéric Joliot-Curie. World War I During World War I, Skłodowska-Curie pushed for the use of mobile radiography units, which came to be popularly known as petites Curies ("Little Curies"), for the treatment of wounded soldiers. These units were powered using tubes of radium emanation, a colorless, radioactive gas given off by radium, later identified as radon. Skłodowska-Curie personally provided the tubes, derived from the radium she purified. Also, promptly after the war started, she donated her and her husband's gold Nobel Prize medals for the war effort. Post-war years In 1921, Skłodowska-Curie toured the United States, where she was welcomed triumphantly, to raise funds for research on radium. These distractions from her scientific labors, and the attendant publicity, caused her much discomfort but provided resources for her work. Her second American tour in 1929 succeeded in equipping the Warsaw Radium Institute, founded in 1925 with her sister Bronisława as director. In her later years, Skłodowska-Curie headed the Pasteur Institute and a radioactivity laboratory created for her by the University of Paris. Skłodowska–Curie visited Poland a last time in the spring of 1934.[15]

Pierre's death

Death

On April 19, 1906, Pierre was killed in a street accident. Walking across the Rue Dauphine in heavy rain, he was struck by a horse-drawn vehicle and fell under its wheels, fracturing his skull. While it has been speculated that he may

Only a couple of months later, Skłodowska-Curie died. Her death on July 4, 1934, at the Sancellemoz Sanatorium in Passy, in Haute-Savoie, eastern France, was from aplastic anemia, almost certainly contracted from exposure to

radiation. The damaging effects of ionizing radiation were then not yet known, and much of her work had been carried out in a shed without any safety measures. She had carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket and stored them in her desk drawer, remarking on the pretty blue-green light that the substances gave off in the dark.[citation needed] She was interred at the cemetery in Sceaux, alongside her husband Pierre. Sixty years later, in 1995, in honor of their achievements, the remains of both were transferred to the Paris Panthéon. She became the first woman so honored. Her laboratory is preserved at the Musée Curie. Due to their levels of radioactivity, her papers from the 1890s (and even her cookbook) are considered too dangerous to handle. They are kept in lead-lined boxes; those who wish to consult them must wear protective clothing.[32] On November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, Poland a girl named Marja Sklodowska was born, an event which went largely unnoticed, but this child’s life and work was to one day have great significance for mankind. Her father, Wladyslaw Sklodowski, a professor of physics and mathematics, and her mother, Bronsitwa, who was a piano player and a singer, instilled in her from a very early age, the importance of hard work, perseverance, and a good education. The early loss of her sister Zosia, to Tuberculosis, and her mother two years later made Marja lose her faith in God, and believe firmly in Science. In Russian-occupied Poland she completed her early education at the age of 16, at the Russian lycée, where she was noted for her memory powers, and won a gold medal. Being poor, she was forced to take a break from her education, and took up jobs as a governess and tutor. She used her savings to help educate Bronya, her elder sister, who was studying in medical school, and later when Bronya became a doctor she repaid Marja by financing her education at the Sorbonne in Paris. Here she changed her name to the French equivalent Marie, and obtained degrees both in Mathematics and Physics in 1893 and 1894. During her studies at the Sorbonne, Marie met a French physicist called Pierre Curie, a scientist who won acclaim for his work in different fields like magnetism and piezoelectricity. On the 26th of July, 1895, Marie and Pierre Curie were married and thus begun a partnership which was not just based on love but also respect for each other's work. The money received by them as a wedding gift, was spent in purchasing bicycles, which they used to tour the country-side. Their marriage was blessed with the addition of two girls to their family, Irene who was born in 1897, and Eve, born in 1904. Her maternal duties, however, did not keep Marie away from her work and studies. She began to study for her Doctorate in Physics, and as her thesis chose to study the newly discovered phenomenon radioactivity. She was joined by Pierre and in 1898 they announced the discovery of a new element which they named Polonium, after the country of her origin, Poland. This was followed, a short while later, by the announcement of the discovery of yet another element, Radium. In order to obtain just one gram of Radium, tons of pitchblende had to be processed. This was back-breaking work, performed in a broken down shed, which had very little protection against the weather. The noted German chemist, Wilhelm Ostwald, who wished to see the "laboratory" where this pioneering work was carried out, was surprised at how using such poor facilities, results of such great significance could be achieved. In recognition of their work, the Curies shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, for the research done on the phenomenon of radioactivity, with Professor Henri Becquerel, who discovered radioactivity. This made Marie Curie the first woman to receive this coveted award. Their work until then had been financed by themselves, leaving them in a state of permanent poverty. The Nobel Prize, and the resultant fame and financial rewards, ensured that there was now enough money to pursue further research. They published their findings

freely and refused to patent their discoveries, insisting that these should be used for the benefit of mankind. Even as their fame grew, tragedy struck the Curie family. The phenomenon of radioactivity was new and its effects were unknown at that time. The radioactive substances were handled with bare hands, and no protective equipment or clothing were used. The Curies and their colleagues did not know it was already beginning to affect them. Even to this day, the notebooks used by the Curies to record their work, are radioactive, and will continue to be so for a long time as the half life of Radium is 1620 years. Anyone wishing to inspect these books at the "Bibliothèque Nationale", has to sign a waiver absolving the authorities of all responsibility. The Curies loved their work so much, and carried the radioactive material in their pockets, or kept it by their bedside, without realising the danger they were exposing themselves to. On April 19, 1906, weakened and not being able to react quickly, Pierre Curie met with a road accident and died. This calamity however did not deter Marie Curie. She continued to care for and educate her children and at the same time pursued her scientific work. She took up the post vacated by her husband, and became the first woman to be appointed professor at the Sorbonne. Being Polish, and a woman, she was discriminated against, and was unsuccessful in her bid, in 1911, to be elected to the Academy of Science (l'Académie des Sciences). In November of the same year, she was accused by the press of having an affair with her colleague Paul Langevin, and causing problems in his married life, a charge strongly denied by Marie Curie. The year 1911, however, ended on a high note for her, when in recognition of her work in discovering the new elements radium and polonium, and for the isolation and the study of radium, and its compounds, she received her second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry. This made Marie Curie the first person, and still today the only woman to have received two Nobel Prizes. The only others to have received two Nobel Prizes are Bardeen, Linus Pauling, and Frederick Sanger. In addition to her scientific achievements, Marie Curie was a humanitarian, who wished to use all her knowledge and research for the good of mankind. To this end, in 1914, she helped found the Pasteur Institute and the Radium Institute in Paris, whose laboratories are used to conduct research that finds ways to use radiation, to diagnose and treat cancer. During the first World War, accompanied by her daughter, she went to the front where she helped to fit vans with X-Ray facilities. She trained the X-Ray machine operators to provide a quick diagnosis of shrapnel and bullet injuries at the front itself, thus saving several lives. After the war she used her fame and directed her efforts in raising funds to build a hospital and research laboratory. She travelled to the United States in 1921 for this purpose and met President Warren Harding, who gave her 1 gram of radium, collected by American women. She now had enough money and radium to pursue her work. She again visited the United States and met with President Herbert Hoover in 1929. However, her work with Radium and Polonium were beginning to take their toll on her as they had done with her husband Pierre. Already she was beginning to suffer dizziness, fevers, constant fatigue, and problems with her hearing and eyesight. She suffered radiation burns on her hands and finally on July 4, 1934, at the age of 67, Marie Curie died of leukaemia caused by radiation exposure. The parents of Marie Curie were both teachers and believed firmly in the benefits of science. Marie Curie and her husband Pierre distinguished themselves both separately and as a team. The daughter of Marie Curie, Irene Joliot Curie, and her husband Frederic Joliot continued the work started by her parents and discovered artificial radioactivity, and paved the way for the discovery of the neutron by Sir James Chadwick. Irène Joliot Curie and her husband Frederic Joliot, won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935. This made Marie Curie and Irène Joliot Curie, the first mother-daughter winners of Nobel Prizes. Marie Curie’s other daughter, Eve Curie although not a scientist worked hard as special

adviser to the Secretary General of NATO. She also authored the biography of Marie Curie, and also the book "Journey Among Warriors", which recounts the experiences of her visits to the battle front during World War II. Marie Curie’s grand-daughter, Dr. Helene Langevin-Joliot, as Professor of Nuclear Physics and Chemistry at the University of Paris also worked in the field of radioactivity. After Marie Curie died she received several honours. The Radium Institute was renamed as the Curie Institute. Several countries have issued stamps in her honour and in appreciation of her work. Poland and France have minted coins, which record for posterity the contributions of Marie Curie. A unit of radioactivity, the Curie, which is the activity of 1 gram of Radium, has been named after the Curies, and equals 3.7x1010 disintegrations per second. (3.7x10 to the 10th. Power) The element no 96 was named Curium, in her honour. Craters on the Moon and on Mars, have been named after her, and NASA plans to name a Mars Rover after her. Books have been written about her and videos and movies produced regarding Marie Curie and her life, including an award winning film in 1943, starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon called "Madame Curie". The Panthéon holds the remains of famous personalities in France who have contributed extensively to the service of the country and bears the inscription "To the fatherland's great men, in gratitude". Before 1995, no woman in France had been honoured here for her own work (See note 1). On April 20, 1995, President François Mitterrand, corrected this by transferring the ashes of Marie and Pierre Curie from their original resting place in Sceaux near Paris to the Pantheon. This made Marie Curie, of Polish origin, the first woman to be thus honoured for her own accomplishments, giving an entirely new meaning to the inscription. The work of Marie Curie, was not just important for her discoveries of new elements, but the process she used to isolate them, helped to create a "stockpile" of a few grams of radioactive material, which future scientists could use for further studies. As a result of her work X-Rays are very common today, as is Carbon dating, radiotherapy, and other medical applications for radiation. It is for no small reason that Marie Curie is considered by most to be the greatest woman scientist of all time. The world indeed owes a great debt to Marie Curie. Note: The Pantheon already contained the remains of another woman, Sophie Berthelot, who received this honour just because she was the wife of the chemist Marcelin Berthelot, and not because she deserved it in her own right.