Marie Curie (10 page)

The discovery of radium opened the new field of radioactivity. In the years since, radium has been put to use in a boggling number of ways. Most important, radium offered an effective means to treat cancer. By the mid-1950s, doctors began refining radiation therapy by replacing radium with another element, cobalt—much safer, cheaper, and more effective. Today radiation therapy is just one weapon in an arsenal of cancer treatments. Meanwhile, scientists continue to look for a cure for the disease.

From the study of radioactivity came radiocarbon-dating techniques. Since we know the half-lives of various forms of the element carbon, we can use them to ascertain the ages of carbon-containing fossils, rocks, and other archeological finds. From such work have come measurements indicating that our Earth is four billion years old. various industries use radioactivity, with strict safety precautions. The food industry, for example, uses it to kill organisms that cause disease and spoil food. Companies that manufacture film, lenses, and other items use radioactivity to remove static-causing dust.

Perhaps most important of all, Marie’s work led to a redefinition of the atom, which, since ancient times, was considered unchangeable and indivisible. Quite the opposite—it turned out that the atom is like a universe, containing whole worlds inside it.

Nuclear power—despite its potential dangers—still offers a source of plentiful energy less damaging to the environment than energy from fossil fuels. Today, thanks in part to Marie’s son-in-law Frédéric, France’s nuclear power plants generate 80 percent of the country’s energy.

The United States uses nuclear power to provide about 20 percent of the electricity it uses. Such a policy remains hotly debated. Nuclear accidents can and do occur, the worst occurring in the Ukraine in 1986. At the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, an accidental explosion released 100 million curies of radioactive material, killing dozens immediately. Three hundred thousand people had to be evacuated. Over six million people across Russia and Europe were exposed to contamination. Some scientists predict that premature death rates from cancer and other diseases will be higher than normal among the exposed, though estimates vary widely.

Harnessing nuclear energy can be the hope of the world—or it can be the agent of its destruction. After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Albert Einstein mourned the events and considered himself as well as other scientists obligated to make sure atomic weapons were never used again.

Since 1945, nuclear weapons have not been used. But the threat hovers. The United States is no longer the only country with the technology to make an atom bomb. More and more countries have atomic bombs of their own, and we pay close attention to which ones are stashing uranium, the first building block of a bomb.

For better or worse, Marie helped to create the modern world.

She also helped create the modern woman, not solely those women who wanted to pursue a career in science but, of course, most especially them. In 1943, a movie about her (
Madame Curie
, starring the glamorous Greer Garson) inspired countless girls who could feel less oddball for liking science. “I believe that men’s and women’s scientific aptitudes are exactly the same,” Irène once told a reporter—not something you heard very often before Marie’s time.

The Curie-Joliot-Langevin dynasty also represented a new era when scientists worked together, as teams in large labs, often without a solo superstar. It is impossible to imagine the brilliant but reclusive Isaac Newton, who hoarded his discoveries like treasure, working at an institute like the one the Curies founded. The papers of Marie’s granddaughter Hélène, for example, give credit to as many as twenty scientists’ contributions.

Knowing she was an icon, Marie tried to reassure women that they didn’t
have
to be as obsessed as she was: “It isn’t necessary to lead such an anti-natural existence as mine. I have given a great deal of time to science because I wanted to, because I loved research. . . . What I want for women and young girls is a simple family life and some work that will interest them.” She advocated a more balanced life than her own.

And yet it was that very lack of balance that made her Marie Curie. Against all the obstacles she faced, how did she accomplish so much? She was lucky enough to have a support system within her own family: a well-educated mother, a father who never discouraged her, relatives who broadened her horizons. Bronia provided a superb role model, Pierre thought she was a genius, and her daughters recognized her for the heroine she was. From her childhood in Poland, under the thumb of Russian rule, she learned how to resist authority and fight for what she wanted. Most of all, she was fueled by a drive to succeed, capable of burying herself in her work to the exclusion of all else.

Since Marie Curie, ten more women have won Nobel Prizes in science, and the number of women scientists has been steadily climbing. Today in the United States, of the students earning advanced science degrees, four out of ten are women.

Schools and streets, stamps and coins have been named for Marie. Every place she ever lived has a plaque honoring her. Her beloved Institute continues to thrive in Paris, coordinating the work of 1,700 people in physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine, with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer as its objective. Every year, some 75,000 people seek help there, drawn by its philosophy: “Marie Curie’s rigorous moral and intellectual approach, as well as her humility and modesty have forged our values and the ‘Curie’ approach.”

Marie even has her own element. In 1944, scientists at University of California, Berkeley, discovered another new one, number 96, which they named “curium” in her and Pierre’s honor. Today we recognize some 120 elements, 92 in nature and the others created artificially in labs.

Not until 1938, four years after Marie’s death, were radioactive materials banned from products for consumers. Organizations now exist to monitor radiation safety nationally and internationally. But the question of how much radiation is too much is still a subject of debate among scientists.

In 1995, Marie’s ashes, along with Pierre’s, were transferred from the cemetery in Sceaux to the Panthéon. At this monument for heroes in Paris, the inscription reads, “To Great Men from a Grateful Country.” As with so many other firsts in her life, she was the first woman to be buried at the Panthéon because of her own achievements. Thousands gathered along the streets to watch, while the president of France spoke about “the first lady of our honored history . . . who decided to impose her abilities in a society where abilities, intellectual exploration, and public responsibility were reserved for men.”

With perverse interest, scientists measured the radiation coming from her casket. Oddly enough, they found it to be less than expected, given her exposure to so many radioactive substances.

Marie wouldn’t have considered herself a martyr to science. In fact, she said, “I am among those who think that science has a great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician, he is also a child placed before natural phenomena, which impress him like a fairy tale.”

Science was beautiful and adventurous, a game she enjoyed, and one she played to win.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(* books especially for young readers)

Bri
ā
n
,
Denis.
The Curies: A Biography of the Most Controversial Family in Science
. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2005.

*
Cooney, Miriam P.
, ed.
Celebrating Women in Mathematics and Science
. Reston, va.: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1996.

Curie, Eve
.
Madame Curie: A Biography
, with a new introduction by Natalie Angier. New York: Da Capo Press, 2001.

*
Dendy, Leslie, and Mel Boring.
Guinea Pig Scientists: Bold Self-Experimenters in Science and Medicine
. New York: Holt, 2005.

Goldsmith, Barbara.
Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie.
New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.

* McClafferty, Carla Killough.
Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.

*
Pasachoff, Naomi.
Marie Curie and the Science of Radioactivity.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Pflaum, Rosalynd.
Grand Obsession: Madame Curie and Her World
. New York: doubleday, 1989.

* Pflaum, Rosālynd.
Marie Curie and Her Daughter Irène
. Minneapolis: Lerner, 1993.

Preston, Diānā.
Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima
. New York: Berkley Books, 2005.

Quinn, Susān.
Marie Curie: A Life
. New York: da Capo Press, 1995.

*
Steele, Philip.
Marie Curie: The Woman Who Changed the Course of Science.
Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Children’s Books, 2006.

*
Strāthern, Pāul.
Curie and Radioactivity: The Big Idea
. London: Arrow Books, 1998.

WEB SITES

(verified June 2007)

“How Nuclear Radiation Works”:
http://science.howstuffworks
.
com/nuclear.htm

Institut Curie, Paris:
http://www.curie.fr/index.cfm/lang/_gb.htm
(includes the Curie Museum)

“Madame Curie,” National Atomic Museum:
http://www.atomicmuseum.com/tour/curie.cfm

“Marie Curie: Biography,”
http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1903/marie-curie-bio.html

“Marie Curie: A Nobel Prize Pioneer at the Panthéon”:
http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/label_france/ENGLISH/SCIENCES/CURIE/marie.html

“Marie Curie, Radioactivity, and the Emerging New Physics: The Extraordinary Career of a Woman Scientist,” Yale School of Medicine:
http://info.med.yale.edu/library/exhibits/curie/welcome.html

“Marie Curie and the Science of Radioactivity,” American Institute of Physics:
http://www.aip.org/history/curie

“Marie and Pierre Curie and the discovery of Polonium and Radium,” Nobel Prize Official Site:
http://nobelprize.org/physics/articles/curie/index.html

Museum of Maria Sklodowska-Curie, Warsaw:
http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/museum.html

The Periodic Table of Elements, Jefferson Lab:
http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/

INDEX

alchemy

alpha rays

American Association of University Women

Anderson, Carl david anti-Semitism

atom

believed to be the smallest particle of matter

structure of

subatomic particles, discovery of

atomic physics
see also
nuclear physics

atomic weapons

Ayrton, Hertha

Becquerel, Henri

Bernhardt, Sarah

beta rays

Boyle, Robert

cancer

radiation exposure as cause of

radiation (radium) therapy for

Cassatt, Mary

Chadwick, James

chemistry

early history of

Mendeleyev’s periodic table of elements

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

cobalt

Comte, Auguste

curie (unit of measurement)

Curie, Ève,
see
Labouisse, Ève Curie (Marie’s daughter)

Curie, Irène,
see
Joliot-Curie, Irène (Marie’s daughter)

Curie, Jacques

Curie, Marie (née Sklowdowska)

ambition

biography written by daughter Ève

burial at the Panthéon

childhood of

collaboration with Pierre

dangers of radiation exposure and

death of

depression and

education of

fame of

finances of

fund-raising by

as governess

hard work and

health of

legacy of

love affairs of

marriage of

miscarriage

as mother

Nobel prizes notebooks

patience and persistence of

personality of

Pierre’s death and

Polish name

supernatural and

as teacher and lecturer

Curie, Pierre (husband)

burial at the Panthéon

career as scientist

collaboration with Marie

courtship of Marie

dangers of radiation exposure and

death of

described

education of

fame and

father of

finances of

health of

marriage of

Nobel prizes

supernatural and

support for Marie’s research and studies

as teacher at the Sorbonne

curium, discovery and naming of

darwin, Charles

debierne, André-Louis

demarcay, Eugène

dickens, Charles

duclaux, Emile

Einstein, Albert

electrometer

electrons

Elementary Treatise on Chemistry
(Lavoisier)

elements

defined

first table of

Mendeleyev’s periodic table

see also specific elements

energy, laws of

“Flying University”

Ford, Henry

fractional crystallization

French Academy of Sciences

Pierre Curie elected to

Marie Curie’s rejection by

first woman elected to

as male institution

French Atomic Energy Commission

French Resistance

Freud, Sigmund

gallium, discovery of

Garson, Greer

germanium, discovery of