[10] In 1880, Pierre and his older brother Paul-Jacques (1856–1941) demonstrated that an electric potential was generated when crystals were compressed, i.e., piezoelectricity.

The Curie temperature is used to study plate tectonics, treat hypothermia, measure caffeine, and to understand extraterrestrial magnetic fields.

[29] Marie Curie was not permitted to give the lecture so Lord Kelvin sat beside her while Pierre spoke on their research.

[30] In the same year, Pierre and Marie Curie, as well as Henri Becquerel, were awarded a Nobel Prize in physics for their research of radioactivity.

[31] Curie and one of his students, Albert Laborde, made the first discovery of nuclear energy, by identifying the continuous emission of heat from radium particles.

[33] In the late nineteenth century, Pierre Curie was investigating the mysteries of ordinary magnetism when he became aware of the spiritualist experiments of other European scientists, such as Charles Richet and Camille Flammarion.

[34]: 68  He did not attend séances such as those of Eusapia Palladino in Paris in June 1905[34]: 238  as a mere spectator, and his goal certainly was not to communicate with spirits.

[35] Pierre Curie's grandfather, Paul Curie (1799–1853), a doctor of medicine, was a committed Malthusian humanist and married Augustine Hofer, daughter of Jean Hofer and great-granddaughter of Jean-Henri Dollfus, great industrialists from Mulhouse in the second half of the 18th century and the first part of the 19th century.

Through this paternal grandmother, Pierre Curie is also a direct descendant of the Basel scientist and mathematician Jean Bernoulli (1667–1748), as is Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Pierre and Marie Curie's daughter, Irène, and their son-in-law, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, were also physicists involved in the study of radioactivity, and each also received Nobel prizes for their work.

Ève married Henry Richardson Labouisse Jr., who received a Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of UNICEF in 1965.

Crossing the busy Rue Dauphine in the rain at the Quai de Conti, he slipped and fell under a heavy horse-drawn cart.

[41] Both the Curies experienced radium burns, both accidentally and voluntarily,[42] and were exposed to extensive doses of radiation while conducting their research.

[44] Had Pierre Curie not been killed in an accident as he was, he would most likely have eventually died of the effects of radiation, as did his wife, their daughter Irène, and her husband Frédéric Joliot.

[45][46] In April 1995, Pierre and Marie Curie were moved from their original resting place, a family cemetery, and enshrined in the crypt of the Panthéon in Paris.