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Daughter
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Son in Law
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Name
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Irene
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Frederick Joliot
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Birth
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12 September 1897
When mum was preparing for her Doctorate.
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19 March1900
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Image
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Parents
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Father:-
Pierre Curie
Mother:-
Marie Curie.
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Father-Henri Joliot A merchant.
Mother- Emile Roderer.
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Siblings
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Sister:- Eve
7 yrs. Younger who became a distinguished writer. Her husband won a
Noble Prize on behalf of UNICEF.
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Childhood
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Her
abilities were far superior to that of other students of her age group.
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As a boarding student at the Lycée Lakanal he
was an outstanding sportsman.
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Education
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Taught in a private class with nine other children at Sorbonne
by her mother, Paul Langevin, and Jean Perrin.
1907 Age. 10yrs.
Marie whenever she had the time gave math puzzles to
Irene which she often solved with much ease. She also had the good fortune of
listening to adult discussions on contemporary science.
She blossomed into a child prodigy.
1912 Age 15Yrs.
She was sent to a High school in Paris.
1925 Age 28Yrs.
She obtained her Doctorate for studies of the alpha rays of polonium (the first
of the two elements her mother had discovered 27 years earlier).
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Later he joined the Lavoisier municipal
school in order to prepare for the entrance competition at the École de
Physique et de Chimie Industrielle,
Obtained a first class degree in Engineering
from Ecole de Physique.
Irene trained
him in special techniques required for radioactive research.
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Biography 1
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She was one of the most un assuming girls in Paris that
did not care about fashions. She played tennis and did skiing.
1914 Age 17yrs.
When the war commenced her mother Marie sent her and
the sister to Brittany.
1934 Age 37Yrs
Her mother died due to radiation poisoning
1942 Age 45Yrs.
Irène supported the movement of equal rights for women
sponsored by the Communist party.
1944 Age 47Yrs.
Irene took their children to Switzerland for safety...
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1942 Age
45Yrs.
Fred
joined the French Communist party
1944
Age 47Yrs.
Fred
risked his life manufacturing explosives and radio equipment for the
Resistance. Joliot had expressed his views as, “Progressive
scientists shall not give a jot of their science to make war………., sustained
by our conviction that in so doing we serve France and all of humanity.”
On the advancement of Germans he sent Research
documents to England.
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Biography 2
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1926
Age 29Yrs.
Frederic
Joliot married
Irene Curie out of church in a civil ceremony.
Irene
had to manage all expenses with her salary as Fred was preparing for his
doctorate. Once he even thought of quitting research altogether and get
into a lucrative job. Irene would not even hear of it.
Eleven
months later, their daughter Helene was born; (she would also become a noted
physicist).
1927
Age 30Yrs.
Things
became worse as Helene was born they could just make ends meet as Irene did
not spend for fashions and hi-fi social activities unlike her sister Eve.
1932
Age 35Yrs.
Their
second child Pierre was born. (He ended up as a biologist).
The
parents worked hard on their research while the children were at school and
they spent their vacations in their holiday home L’Arcoust. This was
essential as Irene; in-spite of energetic output was suffering from
tuberculosis, probably due to the weakening of her resistance due to various
exposures.
This
year they just missed two crucial catches. The sub atomic particle neutron came
to them but missed it. It went over to James Chadwick .The second was
the positron which was caught by C. D. Anderson.
1937
Age 40Yrs..
Just
as she attacked the minute nuclei of atoms, she also resisted the major
movement of Fascism in Europe. During World War II, Irene and Fred stopped
working on nuclear physics as the enemies would have misused their
discoveries and started working only on medical applications of radio
isotopes.
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Contribution
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They are the pioneers in creating artificial
radioactivity.
1934 Age 37Yrs
Irene
Joliot Curie obtained Phosphorous from Aluminum and changed
Magnesium to Silicon.
Irene
achieved this amazing feat, ‘transmutation’ of elements,, at the Curie
Radium Institute in Paris working with her husband Frederick Joliot. All
research papers they signed as Joliot-Curie.
The
Phosphorous produced in this nuclear reaction, was not the same as the
natural element. This Phosphorous, formed from Aluminum were, “minute generators of radiation endowed
with an enormous concentration of energy”; so this was the first instance
a ‘radioactive isotope’ had been made by man.
Radioactive isotopes are now in wide use in medicine and industry just as her
mother who always claimed as, “Pierre and I …….” Irene also
signed all her research papers as Joliot-Curie...
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She
helped her mother to develop of X’ ray therapy while getting a fair dose of
radiation.
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1939,
Age 39Yrs
Frédéric demonstrated,
with Antoine Lacassagne, the use of radioactive iodine as a tracer in the thyroid
gland.
1943 Age 43Yrs.
He became a member of
the Académie de Médecine.
He discovered and worked on the Atomic chain
reactions.
He supervised the building of the first cyclotron
in Western Europe.
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Employment
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1936 Age 39Yrs.
Curie was appointed
Undersecretary of State for Scientific Research. From 1946 to 1951, Curie
served as a member of the French Atomic Energy Commission with her husband
and assisted in establishing France's first atomic pile.
1937 Age 40Yrs.
Irene became the Professor in the Faculty of Science in
Paris.
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Professor Langevin, his physics Professor introduced
him to ‘Curie Radium Institute’ and he became an assistant to Marie
Curie.
1937 Age 37Yrs.
Professor at “Colllege de France”.
In addition to earlier post he accepted the chair at
Sorbonne for Nuclear Physics which was held earlier by his wife.
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1914 Age 17yrs.
She had to leave the University to help her mother with
the fleet of X’ray units to treat the wounded soldiers. She received a
Military Medal for these services.
1918 Age 21Yrs.
Irene joined the Curie Radium Institute as her mother’s
assistant. She conducted research on radiation. The fame and the
achievement of her parents neither discouraged nor intimidated her....Her
sincere love of science, inspired in her only one ambition: to work forever
in that laboratory which she had seen grow up.”--Eve Curie on her sister
Irène.
1939 Age 42Yrs
Irène
devoted her scientific experience and her abilities as an administrator to
the acquisition of raw materials, the prospecting for uranium and the
construction of detection installations.
1946 Age 49Yrs.
After the war, Irene became the Director of
the Institute of Radium and the Commissioner of Atomic energy. She was made a
member of the Legion of Honour but was denied a seat in the French Academy of
Sciences due to her gender.
1950 Age 53Yrs.
Irène was deprived of her position as commissioner in the
Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique
1951 Age 54Yrs.
She was excused of her
services at the Atomic Energy Commission because of her
association with the French Communist party,
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1946
Age 49Yrs.
Fred
was appointed director of the National Center for Scientific Research and was
elected to the French Academy of Sciences. Soon he became the head of the
French Atomic Energy Commission.
1945 Age 25Yrs.
General de Gaulle authorized Frédéric and the
minister of armaments to create the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique to
ensure for France the applications of the discoveries made
1948 Age 48Yrs.
ZOE (zéro, oxyde d’uranium, eau lourde), the first French
nuclear reactor, which, though only moderately powerful, marked the end of
the Anglo-Saxon monopoly.
1950 Age 50Yrs.
Prime Minister Georges Bidault removed him
without explanation from his position as high commissioner,
1956 Age
59Yrs.
Fred
accepted Irene’s chair at Sorbonne.
He devoted the last years of his life to the
creation of a centre for nuclear physics at Orsay,
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Honours
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1935
Age Irene= 38, Fred= 35
They received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry
for the synthesis of new radioactive elements.
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Death
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1956 Age
59Yrs.
Irene’s
health deteriorated with time. Even several surgeries performed could not
save her. At the age of 59 she died of leukemia at the Curie Hospital.
iven a
state funerals
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1965
Age 65Yrs.
Frederick
Joliot succumbed to a liver disease probably due to radiation. Both
Joliot-Curies were given state funerals
Given a
state funeral.
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Progeny
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1927 Age. Irene= 30,
Fred= 27.
Hélène, was born
who would also become a noted physicist,. She did research on Radioactivity. and became the Professor of
Nuclear Physics at the University of Paris.
She
married Paul Langevin’s grandson, Michael a nuclear physicist engaged in
science research..
1932 Age.
Irene= 35, Fred =32.
Their
second child Pierre was born. (He ended up as a biologist).
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