Recognising and celebrating greatness are two important things you have to endorse in your life if you desire to become great one day. On the surface, it looks like Newton’s third law of motion; every force has an equal but opposite reaction. Only in our case, when you celebrate others’ success, your success will also be celebrated. Women have contributed a lot to the success and progress that has been enjoyed in modern-day science. Two great names that spring up in my mind when I talk about this subject are Rosalind Franklin and Marie Curie. I find their work not only to be revolutionary but also inspiring.
Rosalind Elsie Franklin was a chemist and x-ray crystallographer in England. She is well known for her contributions to discovering the structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). DNA is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions that living organisms require for development and function. Our genes are made up of DNA. Her work on the x-ray diffraction images at King’s College in London led to discovering the DNA double helix. Watson and Crick shared a Nobel Prize for this discovery in 1962 because Rosalind Franklin had passed on. Exposure to x-ray radiation is sometimes regarded as the possible cause of her illness because she died of cancer. Rosalind Franklin is generally considered a hero of Science due to her work. She helped in DNA only and contributed greatly to understanding structures such as RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite.
Marie Sklodowska Curie was a Polish-born, French-educated phenomenal physicist and chemist. She conducted pioneering research on radioactivity and contributed to the developments of treatments for cancer. She lived from 1867 to 1934 and was born on 7 November. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. The first and only woman to win the Nobel prize twice and the only one to receive the Nobel Prize in two Scientific Fields. On top of these astonishing achievements, she was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris in 1906. Marie Curie is also known as Madame Curie and is generally recognised as an icon and hero of Science. She did work to discover the elements polonium and radium using techniques she invented for isolating radioactive isotopes. She died in 1934 at the age of 66. Marie Curie died of aplastic anaemia, a condition said to have been caused by exposure to radiation. It is during her outstanding scientific research and excellent work that she got exposed to high levels of radiation. It is believed that she is still radioactive even up to now.
The works of these two women will never be forgotten. They died doing what they loved and made a tremendous impact not only in their worlds but on everyone. Like real scientists, they worked to further humanity. They left tons of knowledge that are being used to affect the lives of people worldwide positively. For instance, the field of medicine benefited a lot from Madam Curie and Rosalind Franklin’s works. I am always inspired by their great intellect, hard work and determination.
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