Final answer:
Marie and Pierre Curie's discovery of radium and polonium greatly contributed to the field of radioactivity, which led to the understanding of its dangers and medical applications. The legacy continued with the Curie family's further contributions, including their daughter and son-in-law's Nobel Prize-winning research.
Step-by-step explanation:
Marie Curie, a Polish scientist, along with her husband Pierre Curie, discovered two new radioactive elements, polonium and radium. They conducted research on radioactivity and investigated if other chemicals besides uranium were radioactive.
From a ton of pitchblende, a waste material from uranium mining, the Curies isolated 0.10 g of radium, which was found to be many times more radioactive than uranium. Their work on radioactivity earned them the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911, making Marie Curie the only person to win Nobel Prizes in both fields.