View source for Biography:Irène Joliot-Curie

{{Short description|French scientist (1897–1956)}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2017}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Irène Joliot-Curie
| image             = Irène Joliot-Curie Harcourt.jpg
| caption           = Curie, {{circa}} 1920s
| birth_name        = Irène Curie
| birth_date        = {{birth date|df=yes|1897|9|12}}
| birth_place       = Paris, France
| death_date        = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1956|3|17|1897|9|12}}
| death_place       = Paris, France
| workplaces        = {{unbulleted list|[[Organization:University of Paris|University of Paris]]|Radium Institute}}
| alma_mater        = [[Organization:University of Paris|University of Paris]]
| doctoral_advisor  = [[Biography:Paul Langevin|Paul Langevin]]
| thesis_title      = Recherches sur les rayons α du polonium : oscillation de parcours, vitesse d'émission, pouvoir ionisant
| thesis_url        = http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/808254661
| thesis_year       = 1925
| doctoral_students = ''Her children''
| spouse            = {{marriage|[[Biography:Frédéric Joliot-Curie|Frédéric Joliot-Curie]]|1926}}
| children          = {{hlist |[[Biography:Hélène Langevin-Joliot|Hélène]]|Pierre}}
| death_cause       = <!-- should only be included when the cause of death has significance for the subject's notability -->
| field             = {{hlist |[[Chemistry:Chemistry|Chemistry]]|[[Physics:Physics|physics]]}}
| prizes            = Nobel Prize for Chemistry<br />{{small|(1935; jointly)}}
| signature         = Solvay1933Signature JoliotCurieI.jpg
}}
'''Irène Joliot-Curie''' ({{IPA-fr|iʁɛn ʒɔljo kyʁi|lang|Fr-Irène Joliot-Curie.ogg}}; {{nee|'''Curie'''}}; 12 September 1897 – 17 March 1956) was a French [[Chemist|chemist]], [[Physicist|physicist]] and politician, the elder daughter of [[Biography:Pierre Curie|Pierre Curie]] and [[Biography:Marie Curie|Marie Skłodowska–Curie]], and the wife of [[Biography:Frédéric Joliot-Curie|Frédéric Joliot-Curie]]. Jointly with her husband, Joliot-Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of [[Physics:Induced radioactivity|induced radioactivity]], making them the second-ever married couple (after her parents) to win the Nobel Prize, while adding to the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. This made the Curies the family with the most Nobel laureates to date.<ref>{{cite web | title=Nobel Prize facts: 'Family Nobel Laureates' | url=https://nobelprize.org/prizes/facts/nobel-prize-facts/ | publisher=Nobel Foundation | year=2008 | access-date=4 September 2008}}</ref> She was also one of the first three women to be a member of a French government, becoming undersecretary for Scientific Research under the Popular Front in 1936.<ref>Archives de l'état civil de Paris en ligne, acte de naissance no 13/2073/1897, avec mention marginale du décès. Autre mention : mariage en 1926 avec Jean Frédéric Joliot {{in lang|fr}} (consulté le 8 avril 2012)</ref> Both children of the Joliot-Curies, [[Biography:Hélène Langevin-Joliot|Hélène]] and Pierre, are also prominent scientists.<ref>{{cite book | last=Byers | first=Nina | author2=Williams, Gary A. | title=Out of the Shadows: Contributions of Twentieth-Century Women to Physics | chapter=Hélène Langevin-Joliot and Pierre Radvanyi | location=Cambridge, UK | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2006 | isbn=0-521-82197-5 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/outofshadowscont0000unse }}</ref>

In 1945, she was one of the six commissioners of the new [[Organization:French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission|French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission]] (CEA) created by de Gaulle and the Provisional Government of the French Republic. She died in Paris on 17 March 1956 from an acute leukemia linked to her exposure to [[Chemistry:Polonium|polonium]] and [[Physics:X-ray|X-ray]]s.

==Biography==

===Early life and education===
Irène was born in Paris, France, on 12 September 1897 and was the first of Marie and Pierre's two daughters. Her sister was Eve. <ref name=":12" /> They lost their father early on in 1906 due to a horse-drawn wagon incident and Marie was left to raise them.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book|title=Marie Curie and her daughters : the private lives of science's first family|last=Shelley.|first=Emling|isbn=9780230115712|edition= First|location=New York|pages=21|oclc=760974704|date = 21 August 2012}}</ref> Education was important to Marie and Irène's education began at a school near the Paris Observatory.<ref name=":2" /> This school was chosen because it had a more challenging curriculum than the school nearby the Curie's home.<ref name=":2" /> In 1906, it was obvious Irène was talented in mathematics and her mother chose to focus on that instead of public school.<ref name=":2" /> Marie joined forces with a number of eminent French scholars, including the prominent French physicist [[Biography:Paul Langevin|Paul Langevin]], to form "The Cooperative", which included a private gathering of nine students that were children of the most distinguished academics in France. Each contributed to educating these children in their respective homes.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|url=http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/ci/1992/IreneJoliot-Curie.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070714121032/http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/ci/1992/IreneJoliot-Curie.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=14 July 2007|title=Irene Joliot-Curie|last=Hussey|first=George}}</ref> The curriculum of The Cooperative was varied and included not only the principles of science and scientific research but such diverse subjects as Chinese and sculpture and with great emphasis placed on self-expression and play. <ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/ci/1992/IreneJoliot-Curie.html |title=Irene Joliet-Curie |access-date=19 October 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070714121032/http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/ci/1992/IreneJoliot-Curie.html |archive-date=14 July 2007 }} Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation</ref> Irène studied in this environment for about two years.<ref name=":1" />

Irène and her sister Ève were sent to Poland to spend the summer with their Aunt Bronia (Marie's sister) when Irène was thirteen.<ref name=":12" /> Irène's education was so rigorous that she still had a German and trigonometry lesson every day of that break.<ref name=":12" /> Irène re-entered a more orthodox learning environment by going back to high school at the Collège Sévigné in central Paris until 1914. She then went onto the Faculty of Science at the [[Organization:University of Paris|Sorbonne]] to complete her baccalaureate, until 1916 when her studies were interrupted by [[Social:World War I|World War I]].<ref name=":1" />

===World War I===
[[File:Irène, Marie et Ève Curie.jpg|thumb|Irène and her mother and sister Ève Curie]]
Irène took a nursing course during college to assist her mother, Marie Curie, in the field as her assistant.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Patwardhan|first=Veena|date=27 March 2018|title=Irene Joliot-Curie (1897–1956)|journal=Chemical Industry Digest|via=ProQuest}}</ref> She began her work as a nurse radiographer on the battlefield alongside her mother, but after a few months she was left to work alone at a radiological facility in Belgium.<ref name=":12" /> She taught doctors how to locate shrapnel in bodies using radiology and taught herself how to repair the equipment.<ref name=":12" /> She moved throughout facilities and battlegrounds including two bombsites, Furnes and [[Earth:Ypres|Ypres]], and Amiens.<ref name=":12" /> She received a military medal for her assistance in X-ray facilities in France and Belgium.<ref name=":2" />

After the war, Irène returned to the Sorbonne in Paris to complete her second baccalaureate degree in mathematics and physics in 1918.<ref name=":3" /> Irène then went on to work as her mother's assistant, teaching radiology at the Radium Institute, which had been built by her parents.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":0" /> Her doctoral thesis was concerned with the [[Physics:Alpha decay|alpha decay]] of [[Chemistry:Polonium|polonium]], the element discovered by her parents (along with radium) and named after Marie's country of birth, Poland. Irène became a Doctor of Science in 1925.<ref name=":2" />

===Research===
[[File:Irene and Marie Curie 1925.jpg|left|thumb|Irène and [[Biography:Marie Curie|Marie Curie]] in 1925]]
As she neared the end of her doctorate in 1924, Irène Curie was asked to teach the precision laboratory techniques required for radiochemical research to the young chemical engineer Frédéric Joliot, whom she would later wed. From 1928 Joliot-Curie and her husband Frédéric combined their research efforts on the study of atomic nuclei.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity|last=Rayner-Canham|first=Marelene and Geoffrey|publisher=MQUP|year=1997|isbn=0941901157|pages=97–123}}</ref> In 1932, Joliot-Curie and her husband Frédéric had full access to Marie's polonium. Experiments were done using gamma rays to identify the [[Physics:Positron|positron]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Irène Joliot-Curie.|last=Hicks|first=Jennifer|publisher=Great Neck Publishing|year=2006|isbn=9781429808248|pages=1–2}}</ref> Though their experiments identified both the [[Physics:Positron|positron]] and the [[Physics:Neutron|neutron]], they failed to interpret the significance of the results and the discoveries were later claimed by [[Biography:Carl David Anderson|Carl David Anderson]] and [[Biography:James Chadwick|James Chadwick]] respectively.<ref name=":0" /> These discoveries would have secured greatness indeed, as together with [[Biography:J. J. Thomson|J. J. Thomson]]'s discovery of the [[Physics:Electron|electron]] in 1897, they finally replaced John Dalton's [[Physics:Atomic theory#Dalton's law of multiple proportions|model]] of atoms as solid spherical particles.{{cn|date=September 2020}}

However, in 1933, Joliot-Curie and her husband were the first to calculate the accurate mass of the neutron.<ref name=":0" /> The Joliot-Curies continued trying to get their name into the scientific community; in doing so they developed a new theory from an interesting experiment they conducted. During an experiment bombarding aluminium with alpha rays, they discovered that only protons were detected. Based on the undetectable electron and positron pair, they proposed that the protons changed into neutrons and positrons.<ref name=":0" /> Later in October 1933, this new theory was presented to the Seventh Solvay Conference. The Solvay Conferences consisted of prominent scientists in the physics and chemistry community.<ref name=":0" /> Irene and her husband presented their theory and results to their fellow scientists, but they received criticism of their finding from most of the 46 scientists attending.<ref name=":0" /> However they were able to build on the controversial theory later on.{{cn|date=September 2020}}

In 1934, the Joliot-Curies finally made the discovery that sealed their place in scientific history. Building on the work of Marie and Pierre Curie, who had isolated naturally occurring radioactive elements, the Joliot-Curies realised the alchemist's dream of turning one element into another: creating radioactive [[Chemistry:Nitrogen|nitrogen]] from [[Chemistry:Boron|boron]], radioactive isotopes of [[Chemistry:Phosphorus|phosphorus]] from aluminium, and [[Chemistry:Silicon|silicon]] from [[Chemistry:Magnesium|magnesium]]. Irradiating the natural stable isotope of aluminium with alpha particles (i.e. helium nuclei) resulted in an [[Physics:Isotopes of phosphorus|unstable isotope of phosphorus]]: <sup>27</sup>Al + <sup>4</sup>He → <sup>30</sup>P + <sup>1</sup>n.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1935/joliot-curie-lecture.html|title=Nobel Lecture: Artificial Production of Radioactive Elements|date=12 December 1935|author=Irène Joliot-Curie}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/joliot-fred-lecture.pdf|title=Chemical Evidence of the Transmutation of Elements|date=12 December 1935|author=Frédéric Joliot}}</ref><ref name="cwp ucla">{{cite web|url=http://cwp.library.ucla.edu/Phase2/Joliot-Curie,_Irene@841891460.html|publisher=CWP|author=Byers |author2=Moszkowski |title=Irène Joliot-Curie Contributions and Bibliography}}</ref> This discovery is formally known as [[Physics:Positron emission|positron emission]] or [[Physics:Beta decay|beta decay]], where a proton in the radioactive nucleus changes to a neutron and releases a positron and an electron neutrino. By then, the application of radioactive materials for use in medicine was growing and this discovery allowed radioactive materials to be created quickly, cheaply, and plentifully. The Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935 brought with it fame and recognition from the scientific community and Joliot-Curie was awarded a professorship at the Faculty of Science.

The work that Irène's laboratory pioneered in research into radium nuclei that led a separate group of German physicists, led by [[Biography:Otto Hahn|Otto Hahn]], [[Biography:Lise Meitner|Lise Meitner]], and Fritz Strassman, to discover [[Physics:Nuclear fission|nuclear fission]]: the splitting of the nucleus itself, emitting vast amounts of energy. Lise Meitner's now-famous calculations actually disproved Irène's results to show that nuclear fission was possible.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frederic-and-Irene-Joliot-Curie|title=Frederic and Irene Joliot-Curie|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref>

In 1948, using work on nuclear fission, the Joliot-Curies along with other scientists created the first French nuclear reactor.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> The Joliot-Curies were a part of the organization in charge of the project, the Atomic Energy Commission, ''Commissariat à l'énergie atomique'' (CEA). Irène was the commissioner of the CEA and Irène's husband, Frédéric, was the director of the CEA.<ref name=":0" /> The reactor, [[Engineering:Zoé (reactor)|Zoé]] (Zéro énergie Oxyde et Eau lourde) used nuclear fission to generate five kilowatts of power.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> This was the beginning of nuclear energy as a source of power for France.

Years of working so closely with radioactive materials finally caught up with Joliot-Curie and she was diagnosed with [[Medicine:Leukemia|leukemia]].<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=McGrayne |first=Sharon Bertsch |title=Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles, and Momentous Discoveries |publisher=Joseph Henry Press. |year=1998 |isbn=9780309072700 |location=Washington, DC |pages=117–143}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> She had been accidentally exposed to [[Chemistry:Polonium|polonium]] when a sealed capsule of the element exploded on her laboratory bench in 1946.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Zielinski |first=Sarah |last2= |first2= |date=2011-10-03 |title=Six Secrets of Polonium |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/six-secrets-of-polonium-94821613/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230528101648/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/six-secrets-of-polonium-94821613/ |archive-date=2023-05-28 |access-date=2023-11-17 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}}</ref> Treatment with antibiotics and a series of operations relieved her suffering temporarily but her condition continued to deteriorate. Despite this, Joliot-Curie continued to work and in 1955 drew up plans for new physics laboratories at the Orsay Faculty of Sciences, which is now a part of the Paris-Saclay University, south of Paris.{{cn|date=September 2020}}

===Political views===
The Joliot-Curies had become increasingly aware of the growth of the fascist movement.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":0" /> They opposed its ideals and joined the Socialist Party in 1934, the ''[[Social:Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes|Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes]]'' a year later, and in 1936 they actively supported the Republican faction in the Spanish Civil War.<ref name=":6" /> In the same year, Joliot-Curie was appointed Undersecretary of State for Scientific Research by the French government, in which capacity she helped in founding the ''Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique''.<ref name=":6" /> 

Frédéric and Irène visited Moscow for the two hundred and twentieth anniversary of the Russian Academy of Science and returned sympathizing with Russian colleagues.  Frédéric's close connection with the Communist Party caused Irène to later be detained on Ellis Island during her third trip to the US, coming to speak in support of Spanish refugees, at the Joint Antifascist Refugee Committee's invitation.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book|last=Rayner-Canham, Marelene F.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/191818978|title=A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity|date=1997|publisher=Chemical Heritage Foundation|isbn=978-0-7735-6658-3|location=Philadelphia, Pa.|oclc=191818978}}</ref>

The Joliot-Curies had continued Pierre and Marie's policy of publishing all of their work for the benefit of the global scientific community, but afraid of the danger that might result should it be developed for military use, they stopped: on 30 October 1939, they placed all of their documentation on nuclear fission in the vaults of the French Academy of Sciences, where it remained until 1949.<ref name=":6" />

Joliot-Curie's political career continued after the war and she became a commissioner in the ''Commissariat à l'énergie atomique''.<ref name=":6" /> However, she still found time for scientific work and in 1946 became director of her mother's ''Institut Curie''.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":0" />

Joliot-Curie became actively involved in promoting women's education, serving on the National Committee of the Union of French Women (''Comité National de l'Union des Femmes Françaises'') and the World Peace Council. The Joliot-Curies were given memberships to the French ''Légion d'honneur''; Irène as an officer and Frédéric as a commander, recognising his earlier work for the resistance.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":0" />

===Personal life===
[[File:Frederic and Irene Joliot-Curie.jpg|280px|thumb|The Joliot-Curies in the 1940s]]
Irène and Frédéric hyphenated their surnames to Joliot-Curie after they married in 1926. The Joliot-Curies had two children, [[Biography:Hélène Langevin-Joliot|Hélène]], born eleven months after they were married, and Pierre, born in 1932.<ref name=":6" />

Between 1941 and 1943 during [[Social:World War II|World War II]], Joliot-Curie contracted [[Medicine:Tuberculosis|tuberculosis]] and was forced to spend time convalescing in Switzerland.<ref name=":6" /> Concern for her own health together with the anguish of her husband's being in the resistance against the German troops and her children in occupied France was hard to bear.<ref name=":6" /> She did make several dangerous visits back to France, enduring detention by German troops at the Swiss border on more than one occasion. Finally, in 1944, Joliot-Curie judged it too dangerous for her family to remain in France and she took her children back to Switzerland.<ref name=":6" /> Later in September 1944, after not hearing from Frédéric for months, Irene and her children were finally able to rejoin him.<ref name=":6" />

Irène fought through these struggles to advocate for her own personal views.<ref name=":0" /> She was a passionate member of the feminist movement, especially regarding the sciences, and also advocated for peace. She continually applied to the French Academy of Sciences, an elite scientific organization, knowing that she would be denied. She did so to draw attention to the fact they did not accept women in the organization.<ref name=":0" /> Irène was also involved in many speaking functions such as the International Women's Day conference.<ref name=":0" /> She also played a big role for the French contingent at the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace, which promoted the World Peace movement.<ref name=":0" /> In 1948, during a strike involving coal miners, Joliot-Curie reached out to Paris Newsletters to convince families to temporarily adopt the children of the coal miners during the strike. The Joliot-Curies adopted two girls during that time.<ref name=":0" />

=== Death ===
In 1956, after a final convalescent period in the French Alps, Joliot-Curie was admitted to the Curie Hospital in Paris, where she died on 17 March at the age of 58 from leukemia, possibly due to radiation from [[Physics:Polonium-210|polonium-210]].<ref>{{cite web | title=Q&A: Polonium-210 | url=http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2006/November/27110601.asp | work=Chemistry World | publisher=Royal Society of Chemistry | date=27 November 2006 | access-date=4 September 2008}}</ref><ref name=Po210>{{cite journal |last1=Richter |first1=F. |last2=Wagmann |first2=M. |last3=Zehringer |first3=M. |title=Polonium – on the Trace of a Powerful Alpha Nuclide in the Environment |journal=CHIMIA International Journal for Chemistry |year=2012 |volume=66 |issue=3 |pages=131 |doi=10.2533/chimia.2012.131 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224869922|doi-access=free }}</ref> Frédéric's health was also declining, and he died in 1958 from liver disease, which too was said to be the result of overexposure to radiation.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Marie Curie and her daughters : the private lives of science's first family|last=Shelley |first=Emling |isbn=9780230115712|edition= First |location=New York|oclc=760974704|date=21 August 2012 }}</ref>

Joliot-Curie was an atheist and anti-war.<ref name=":6" /><ref>"It was to her grandfather, a convinced freethinker, that Irène owed her atheism, later politically expressed as anticlericalism." [http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Irene_Joliot-Curie.aspx Joliot-Curie, Irène.] Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 17 March 2012.</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Curies: A Biography of the Most Controversial Family in Science|url=https://archive.org/details/curiesbiographyo00bria|url-access=registration|author=Denis Brian|publisher=Wiley|isbn=9780471273912|page=[https://archive.org/details/curiesbiographyo00bria/page/389 389]|quote=There were no prayers: Irene was deeply atheist.|date=August 2005}}</ref> When the French government held a national funeral in her honor, Irène's family asked to have the religious and military portions of the funeral omitted.<ref name=":6" /> Frédéric was also given a national funeral by the French government.<ref name=":6" />

Joliot-Curie's daughter, [[Biography:Hélène Langevin-Joliot|Hélène Langevin-Joliot]], went on to become a nuclear physicist and professor at the [[Organization:University of Paris|University of Paris]]. Joliot-Curie's son, Pierre Joliot, went on to become a [[Biochemist|biochemist]] at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.<ref name=":6" />

===Notable honours===
* Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for the discovery of artificial radioactivity with Frédéric Joliot-Curie.
* Barnard Gold Medal for Meritorious Service to Science in 1940 with Frédéric Joliot-Curie.<ref>{{Cite news |date=18 March 1940 |title=BARNARD MEDAL GOES TO THE JOLIOT-CURIES |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1940/03/18/archives/barnard-medal-goes-to-the-joliotcuries-science-award-made-for-work.html |access-date=10 September 2020 |issn=0362-4331 }}</ref>
* Officer of the Legion of Honor.<ref name="cwp ucla"/>

Her name was added to the ''Monument to the X-ray and Radium Martyrs of All Nations'' erected in [[Place:Hamburg|Hamburg]], Germany.

==See also==
* List of female Nobel laureates
* [[Chemistry:Women in chemistry|Women in chemistry]]
* Stefania Maracineanu
* Timeline of women in science
* ''Radioactive'' (film)

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book|last=Opfell|first=Olga S.|title=The Lady Laureates: Women Who have Won the Nobel Prize|url=https://archive.org/details/ladylaureateswom0000opfe|url-access=registration|year=1978|publisher=Scarecrow Press|location=Metuchen, N.J. & London|isbn=0810811618|pages=[https://archive.org/details/ladylaureateswom0000opfe/page/165 165–182]}}
* Conference (Dec. 1935) for the Nobel prize of F. & I. Joliot-Curie, online and analysed on ''BibNum'' <small>[click 'à télécharger' for English version]</small>.

==External links==
* {{PM20|FID=pe/008867}}
* {{Nobelprize}} including the Nobel Lecture on 12 December 1935 ''Artificial Production of Radioactive Elements''

{{Nobel Prize in Chemistry Laureates 1926-1950}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joliot-Curie, Irene}}
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Chemistry]]
[[Category:Nuclear chemists]]

{{Sourceattribution|Irène Joliot-Curie}}