Editing Marie Curie (section)

== Legacy ==
[[File:Lublin UMCS Pomnik Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|[[Marie Curie Monument in Lublin]]]]

The physical and societal aspects of the Curies' work contributed to shaping the world of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.<ref name="Estreicher1938d" /> [[Cornell University]] professor [[L. Pearce Williams]] observes:

{{blockquote|The result of the Curies' work was epoch-making. Radium's radioactivity was so great that it could not be ignored. It seemed to contradict the principle of the conservation of energy and therefore forced a reconsideration of the foundations of physics. On the experimental level the discovery of radium provided men like Ernest Rutherford with sources of radioactivity with which they could probe the structure of the atom. As a result of Rutherford's experiments with alpha radiation, the nuclear atom was first postulated. In medicine, the radioactivity of radium appeared to offer a means by which cancer could be successfully attacked.<ref name="Williams1986 p332" />}}

In addition to helping to overturn established ideas in physics and chemistry, Curie's work has had a profound effect in the societal sphere. To attain her scientific achievements, she had to overcome barriers, in both her native and her adoptive country, that were placed in her way because she was a woman.<ref name="Wierzewski2008" />

She was known for her honesty and moderate lifestyle.<ref name="Estreicher1938b" /><ref name="Estreicher1938d" /> Having received a small scholarship in 1893, she returned it in 1897 as soon as she began earning her keep.<ref name="Estreicher1938a" /><ref name="Marie Curie – Student in Paris 2" /> She gave much of her first Nobel Prize money to friends, family, students, and research associates.<ref name="Wierzewski2008" /> In an unusual decision, Curie intentionally refrained from patenting the radium-isolation process so that the scientific community could do research unhindered.<ref name="Reid1974i" />{{efn|However, [[Patricia Fara]] writes: "Marie Skłodowska Curie's reputation as a scientific martyr is often supported by quoting her denial (carefully crafted by her American publicist, [[Marie Meloney]]) that she derived any personal gain from her research: 'There were no patents. We were working in the interests of science. Radium was not to enrich anyone. Radium... belongs to all people.' As Eva Hemmungs Wirtén pointed out in ''Making Marie Curie'', this claim takes on a different hue once you learn that, under French law, Curie was banned from taking out a patent in her own name, so that any profits from her research would automatically have gone to her husband, Pierre." [[Patricia Fara]], "It leads to everything" (review of Paul Sen, ''Einstein's Fridge: The Science of Fire, Ice and the Universe'', William Collins, April 2021, {{ISBN|978 0 00 826279 2}}, 305 pp.), ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 43, no. 18 (23 September 2021), pp. 20–21 (quotation, p. 21).}} She insisted that monetary gifts and awards be given to the scientific institutions she was affiliated with rather than to her.<ref name="Estreicher1938d" /> She and her husband often refused awards and medals.<ref name="Estreicher1938b" /> [[Albert Einstein]] reportedly remarked that she was probably the only person who could not be corrupted by fame.<ref name="Wierzewski2008" />