Curie, Pierre, KYOO ree, pyair (1859-1906), was a French physicist known for his work in radioactivity. He shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics with his wife, Marie, for their study of radiation and with the French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel for his earlier discovery of natural radioactivity. The Curies, while studying uranium, discovered two highly radioactive chemical elements, radium and polonium. The French chemist Gustave Bemont helped in the work with radium.