Piezoelectric Effect (Marie Curie, Pierre Curie)

Curie, Marie (1867-1934) or Curie, Pierre (1859-1906), French physicists and Nobel laureates, who were wife and husband; together, they discovered the chemical elements radium and polonium. The Curies' study of radioactive elements contributed to the understanding of atoms on which modern nuclear physics is based.
Pierre Curie was born in Paris on May 15, 1859, and studied science at the Sorbonne. In 1880 he and his brother Jacques observed that an electric potential is produced when pressure is exerted on a quartz crystal. The brothers named the phenomenon piezoelectricity. In the course of later studies of magnetism, Pierre Curie discovered a certain temperature (the Curie point) at which magnetic substances lose their magnetism. In 1895 he was named professor in the School of Physics and Chemistry in Paris.