Marie Curie

Maria Skłodowska was born in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, and there began her scientific training and practice. In 1891, she went to Paris, France, where she continued her studies of physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the University of Paris and conducted her subsequent scientific work. After marrying Pierre Curie, she became known as Marie Curie. In 1903, Marie, along with her husband and Henri Becquerel, received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on radioactivity.

She also won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work on polonium and radium. Marie Curie was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize and the only woman ever to have received two of them. On July 18, 1898, Marie and her husband publicized their discovery of an element that they named polonium in honor of her native Poland. Five months later, on December 26, the couple announced a second new element, which they called radium (the Latin word for “ray”), from which they also coined the term radioactivity. Curie died in 1934 of aplastic anemia stemming from radiation exposure caused by the test tubes of radium she carried in her pockets during research and from the mobile X-ray units she set up during her service in World War I.

Not having all the understanding and safety measures we have today, she died from exposure to the very element she discovered and researched.

The Bible tells us that Jesus came to this world to resolve the problem of sin, and the only way of doing it was by dying for our sins.

We are told that “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV).

He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5, NIV). Even so, He remained “without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

At His incarnation, Christ took all the effects of sin but was not infected by sin. If He had sinned, He could not be our Savior but would need a savior for Himself.

But praise God that our sinless Savior carried our sins without becoming a sinner!