Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Pierre and Marie Curie were husband and wife whose work in science contributed to the understanding of atoms on which modern nuclear physics is based. Pierre Curie, who was born in Paris, studied science at the Sorbonne. In 1880 he and his brother Jacques perceived that an electric potential is produced when pressure is exerted on a quartz crystal. They called this discovery piezoelectricity(Encarta, 1996). His later studies involved research on the magnetic properties of metals. Pierre discovered the temperature at which such properties suddenly chan