Marie's choice for her thesis topic was influenced by some other scientist. A German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovered In December 1895, about six months after the Curies married, a certain kind of ray . The ray that he discovered could travel through solid wood and yield photographs of people's bones. Roentgen called these mysterious rays X-rays. The X stands for unknown.German In recognition of his discovery, Roentgen in 1901 became the first Nobel laureate in physics.

During 1896 A French physicist Henri Becquerel discovered a new phenomenon. He reported to the French Academy of Sciences that uranium compounds emitted rays that could fog a photographic plate. Even if the uranium was kept in the dark. He had come upon this discovery by accident, by just a few months after Roentgen's discovery.

Maria Curie, was looking for a subject for a thesis, and decided to research the property that was discovered in uranium and see if it could be found in other matter. Maria focused on pitchblende, (Its activity is stronger then that of pure uranium) Maria's husband Pierre Curie joined her in the work. They discovered the new elements, polonium and radium. In 1903 they shared the Nobel prize for Physics for the discovery of radioactivity with Becueqel.http://hum.amu.edu.pl/~zbzw/ph/sci/msc.htm

http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1903/index.html

Pierre Curie

http://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/g/grodgers/ScientificTravelingWebsite/MarieCurie.html