Elements of Marie Curie

Biography of Marie Curie

When pressed to write a memoir, Marie Curie—two-time Nobel Prize winner and the only person to win for two different fields of science— said that her life could be summed up in three sentences: “I was born in Warsaw of a family of teachers. I married Pierre Curie and had two children. I have done my work in France.” Fortunately, a number of other authors have felt more details were warranted, and Curie has since been the subject of many acclaimed biographies, including one written by her younger daughter, the journalist Ève Curie. What then remains to be said of the scientific icon? In The Elements of Marie Curie, Dava Sobel offers a vivid narrative that uses Curie’s well-known story as scaffolding for tales of the brilliant young women who trained in her lab and became part of her scientific legacy.

Read my review of Dava Sobel’s book.

Earlier this month, I got an email, which said:

“Thank you ever so much for your thoughtful and generous review in Science. I am of course thrilled, as is everyone at Grove/Atlantic. As it happens, I’m in Cambridge today for a 3 p.m. event at Porter Square Books.  If you’re in the area (the store recently moved to larger space at 1518 Mass. Ave.) with nothing better to do, I’d love to say thank you in person.”

Of course, I jumped on it! If there is a book reading/discussion by Dava Sobel at a bookstore near you — you should go. Dava is such a charming, intelligent and articulate person, chances are, you will immediately make up your mind to read anything/everything she had written. Her beat is historical women in science. Her stories are for most part about women whose contributions to science should be better own, or some like Marie Curie who are already household names, but there is so much more to know about them. And it is quite easy to forget the context in which these women did science.

Is Marie Curie still relevant? I would say yes. I came from a family where women were never dissuaded from studying science. But this I have learnt is not the case for everyone, here, in the United States or elsewhere in the world. Many women with advanced degrees in science still drop out after becoming mothers. Childcare, sadly, remains an issue for mothers in science.  Marie Curie herself was very fortunate. Her father-in-law took care of her two daughters. Even today women do not find it easy rise to top positions in research institutes. There still seems to be plenty of bias against women in science.

How did you come to write this book? When an editor suggested I write about a book Madame Curie, I turned out down the idea. Later, I was asked to review a book about some early women in the field of radioactivity. As it read it, it soon became evident that many of these women had spent time, during their formative years in Curie’s lab. It was a magnet for young women scientists back then.  There were some 45 of them in all!  Now the idea of working on a new biography became interesting.  She had so many intellectual daughters in science apart from Irene, her eldest child, who would also go on to win a Nobel in chemistry. This was a fairly unknown part of her legacy.

So, what it was like writing the book? 

I worked on the book during the pandemic years and quite enjoyed her research and writing. Of course, the trips to Paris to look up archives and walk around in some of her haunts were out of the question. The research was done online. I quite enjoyed my time alone with Curie. She was such wonderful company!

Marie’s personality seemed to scream “leave me alone to my science please,” but, clearly, she was a shining example to many in her lifetime and beyond. She inspired women to take up science as a career. If women did have an opportunity to work in this space, it was thought that they were not the ones who had the Aha! moments.  Women were thought be doing a different kind of science — patient, low-paid grunt work. But this is really not the case …

P.S.

Please check out this episode of Google Talks where Dava speaks about her book The Glass Universe — about female human “computers” at Harvard University and their contributions to astronomy.

“Half a million stellar images on glass photographic plates, taken over the span of a century, constitute a “glass universe” at the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The observatory’s far-sighted director, Edward Pickering, conceived the project in the late 19th century, with funding from two New York heiresses interested in astronomy, Anna Palmer Draper and Catherine Wolfe Bruce. As the collection of glass plates grew, unusual employment opportunities opened for “women’s work”.

Several of the women employed at the observatory became full-fledged—and famous— astronomers. Henrietta Leavitt translated the changing brightness of certain stars into a yardstick for measuring distances across space (now known as the Leavitt Law). Williamina Fleming, Annie Jump Cannon, and Antonia Maury organized the stars into a classification system still used today. Cecilia Payne, the first person to earn a doctorate in astronomy at Harvard, figured out what stars are made of.”

Next up for me:

1. Galileo’s Daughter. Read the Q & A with Dava titled: Galileo’s Contradiction: The Astronomer Who Riled the Inquisition Fathered 2 Nuns

2. Longitude.  “As much a tale of intrigue as it is of science…A book full of gems for anyone interested in history, geography, astronomy, navigation, clock making, and—not the least—plain old human ambition and greed.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer “