What is Pierre Curie?
{{nobelprize|Physics}} [[File:Pierrecurie.jpg|thumb|Pierre Curie]] '''Pierre Curie''' (15 May 1859 in [[Paris]] – 19 April 1906 in Paris) was a [[France|French]] [[physicist]]. He shared the 1903 [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] with his wife, [[Marie Curie]] and [[Henri Becquerel]], for the work on 'spontaneous [[radioactivity]]' which Becquerel discovered.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1903/ |title=The Nobel Prize in Physics 1903 |first= |last= |work=nobelprize.org |year=2011 |accessdate=23 March 2011}}</ref> == Work == Pierre Curie is not as well known as Marie Curie, although Pierre and his brother had done a lot of work before Pierre's marriage and work with Marie. They were the first to use the term 'radioactivity', and were pioneers in its study. Pierre and his brother, Jacques Curie, built a special meter for measuring small amounts of [[electricity]], [[piezoelectricity]] and [[ferromagnetism]] which Pierre and Marie used in their other discoveries. Pierre died after a carriage accident in Paris on 19 April 1906. His head was crushed under the wheels. If he had lived he would probably have died by [[radiation]] poisoning, as Marie did. As they were the first to study radioactivity, they did not know how dangerous it was. After Pierre's death, a group of [[scientist]]s at the Radiology Congress decided to honour him by naming the unit of radioactivity a [[Curie (unit)|curie]]. == Children == Pierre and Marie Curie's daughter [[Irène Joliot-Curie]] and their son-in-law [[Frédéric Joliot-Curie]] were also physicists involved in the study of radioactivity, and were also given the Nobel prize for their work. Their other daughter [[Ève Curie|Ève]] wrote her mother's biography. His granddaughter [[Hélène Langevin-Joliot]] is a [[professor]] of nuclear physics at the [[University of Paris]] and his grandson, [[Pierre Joliot]], who was named after him, is a noted [[biochemist]]. == Prizes == * [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] (1903) * [[Davy Medal]] (1903) * [[Matteucci Medal