Marie Curie l'industrie nationale" ). That same year Pierre Curie entered her life; it was their mutual interest in natural sciences that drew them together. Pierre Curie was an instructor at the School of Physics and Chemistry, the "École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris" (ESPCI). They were introduced by the Polish physicist, Professor Józef Wierusz-Kowalski, who had learned that she was looking for a larger laboratory space, something that Wierusz-Kowalski thought Pierre Curie had access to. Though Curie did not have a large laboratory, he was able to find some space for Skłodowska where she
Marie Curie a systematic search for additional substances that emit radiation, and by 1898 she discovered that the element thorium was also radioactive. Pierre Curie was increasingly intrigued by her work. By mid-1898 he was so invested in it that he decided to drop his work on crystals and to join her. She was acutely aware of the importance of promptly publishing her discoveries and thus establishing her priority. Had not Becquerel, two years earlier, presented his discovery to the "Académie des Sciences" the day after he made it, credit for the discovery of radioactivity, and even a Nobel Prize, would instead