Marie Curie’s Scandalous Love Affair With Paul Langevin, and 9 Other Facts About Her Life
Ten facts about Marie Curie that you probably didn’t know about
Marie Skłodowska Curie is undoubtedly one of the most prolific physicists of all time, a sensational inspiration for, not just women in STEM, but everyone who aspires to contribute to the field of science and technology. The Nobel Prize awardee had a life full of numerous ups and downs, from her struggles with higher education, the depression she went through due to her love affair with a fellow physicist, to her death due to her own discovery. Her life is no less than something that should be talked about and written about and taught about as a source of inspiration as to how she went through so much throughout her life and still stayed persistent in her dedication towards science and scientific pursuit. Let’s talk about a few facts associated with the life and science of Marie Curie.
She got her higher education in secret
At that time, Marie Curie was brought up in Poland which was under the control of the Russian Government. The Soviet laws prevented women from attaining higher education. But this didn’t stop Marie curie from getting her education. Her family thought was very supportive of her academic career but they lacked the funds to send her to a reputed polish University. Thus she had to attend Flying university in secret.
Her family had a critical financial condition
When her father lost his job, they had to settle down in a smaller apartment. Also, her parents both being teachers, were very supportive of the academic choices she wanted to make in her life. So even though they were struggling with money, they sent her to a University to fulfill her dreams. They couldn’t even afford proper food and she was often struggling with her diet. She occasionally fainted from hunger, though it didn’t stop her from what lay ahead for her career.
Pierre Curie was a chance meeting
During 1894, Marie curie was engrossed in her research but had little to no space for performing experiments in the laboratory. She was looking for a larger laboratory for her work. Fortunately, Pierre Curie had a larger space in his lab. The meeting was not intentional but she met Pierre through a mutual acquaintance. But after getting to know each other, both of them fell in love but it was not an easy road ahead. She was so focused on her career that Pierre’s marriage proposal got rejected three times.
The term ‘Radioactivity’ was coined by the Curies
In July 1898, when both of them were working intensely on their research, they came upon a new element and named it Polonium. The name was given so with regard to respect for her native country Poland. During the same year, they came across another radioactive element which was Radium. When they wrote papers on these elements, the term ‘Radioactive’ was used for the first time here.
The Nobel Prize committee was biased in not giving her the award
The field of physics or any scientific area was dominated by men back at that time. Though the contributions of Marie Curie in the field of Physics and Chemistry are insurmountable and couldn’t be looked past, the Nobel Prize committee didn’t hold the same opinion at first that year when she was on the list of awardees. The reason? She was a woman. A strong women’s rights activist fortunately from the Nobel Prize committee informed Pierre of this decision. Pierre threatened the committee that he was not going to receive the prize unless Marie’s name was included beside his. This changed the mind of the committee regarding giving an award to Marie Curie.
If you want to read further about the Nobel Committee and how Marie Curie almost desisted from the Prize, I highly recommend this article by Liz Heinecke,
There was a scandal about her affair with a former student of Pierre Curie
The drama and scandals couldn’t escape, even in Marie’s life. In 1911, she won the Nobel Prize in chemistry to become the first person to win two Nobel prizes. But during this time, there started accusations about her affair with Paul Langevin a fellow physicist and former colleague of Pierre. The newspapers didn’t go easy on her and hit her with the titles like ‘Jewish home wrecker’. Curie was in Belgium at this time meeting up with famous physicists like Einstein when this scandal broke and when she returned home, there was a group of angry mobs in front of her house.
The cause of her death was her work
She died in 1934, due to Aplastic anemia (which occurs when your body stops producing enough new blood cells.) This is most likely due to the fact that she had been exposed to radiation for far too long when she was working on her research in the laboratory. Even the notebook she used to write has traces of radioactivity and will be radioactive for years to come. They’re stored in lead-lined boxes in France. The fact that she used to carry radium samples in her lab coat and also used them beside her bed as a nightlight says all about the radiation poisoning she suffered from.
She got a letter from Albert Einstein himself
During the height of her career when she was about to receive yet another Nobel prize, the scandal was dragging her down at the same time. When the news broke out about the scandal, she was in Belgium for a Solvay conference (An event devoted to outstanding preeminent open problems in both physics and chemistry). She was the only woman at that conference. Albert Einstein was also there and they met eventually. Einstein was a fan of her work. When the news of the scandal broke out, Einstein wrote a letter to Marie as a means of support for her grief which said
“Highly esteemed Mrs. Curie, Do not laugh at me for writing you without having anything sensible to say. But I am so enraged by the base manner in which the public is presently daring to concern itself with you that I absolutely must give vent to this feeling…..”
Read the full letter in this amazing fs blog:
She adopted the French spelling of her name
The whole world today knows her as Marie Curie but this was not her actual name. When she was in Poland, her original name was Maria Sklodowska. But when she moved to France, she liked the sound of Marie better for her name so she changed it accordingly.
She had the opportunity to meet two American presidents in her lifetime
In the early stages of her career, she mostly visited Europe for her work. But eventually, she managed time to finally visit the United States, twice in fact. The first time she came to the united states in 1921, was related to her acquiring a gram of Radium for her work which was crowdfunded by the American Women. The radium was presented to her by President Warren Harding. The second time in 1929, relating to the same work, she visited the US and had the opportunity to meet president, Herbert Hoover. The second visit was not as pleasant as the first one as she didn’t receive the radium directly, but rather the capital of 50,000$ for 1gm of radium which she later had to acquire separately.
Contributed by Rishab Karki and curated by the author.
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