When the laboratory was closed: How was the personal life of Maria Sklodowska-Curie - mother of two daughters and two metals

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

July 4 marked the 84th anniversary of the death of Maria Sklodowska-Curie, the world famous physicist and chemist, the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize and the first recipient of this award to receive it twice. Many books and articles have been written about her, but most of them tell mainly about her work and show only one side of her life - the life of a scientist completely immersed in science, who discovered two chemical elements. Meanwhile, you can tell a lot of interesting things about her as a wife, mother and just a wonderful person.

Few people even know that Sklodowska-Curie had two names - her name was Maria Salome. The reason for this is that, having settled in France, she almost did not use the middle name, as it sounded unusual for the locals.

Love illuminated by radium

It is generally accepted that Maria and her husband Pierre Curie were focused only on their research and were not distracted by such an "empty" thing as romance. But in reality, this is far from the case. No matter how hard these two worked, they tried to find time for cycling and picnics at the edge of the forest, for which Maria lovingly made sandwiches. And conversations during such trips were not only about work …

After the Curies were finally convinced that they had discovered a new metal, they began to try to isolate it in its purest form, and Maria first thought about what this new substance would look like. Most metals are silvery white, she thought, although there are exceptions - gold, copper, cobalt … And although in physics the color of chemical elements is not so important, Maria wanted the metal she discovered to be not white, but some other color. As a serious scientist, she could afford this little frivolous dream.

And her dream came true partially. True, in the light, the radium isolated by her and Pierre was the same white color as other metals, but soon the couple discovered that in the dark it glows with a light green light. Not a single chemical element discovered before had such amazing properties, and this made a huge impression on Mary and Pierre. Often in the evenings, after finishing work in the laboratory, turning off the lights and getting ready to go home, they stopped at the door, turned around and admired the soft green glow for a long time.

The Curies did not know how dangerous this green glow is - in those years not a single person on Earth knew about it. So far, radioactivity has brought them only good - fame in scientific circles, and then, after they were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, all over the world.

Illness for a celebration is not a hindrance

Few people know that this Nobel Prize was awarded not only to the Curies, but also to their colleague Henri Becquerel, the scientist who was the first to discover the very phenomenon of radioactivity. And very few people know that Maria and Pierre were not present at the award ceremony in the fall of 1903: they could not come to Stockholm due to illness. It was terribly offensive to miss such an event, and the Nobel Committee decided to correct this injustice - especially for the first woman laureate, the award ceremony was repeated next summer.

Humanities among physicists

Everyone knows that the Curies had a daughter, Irene, because she continued their work, she also began to study radioactivity and also received the Nobel Prize for her research together with her husband Frederic Joliot-Curie. However, in addition to Irene, Maria and Pierre had another daughter named Eva Denise, who almost undeservedly received almost no attention in articles and books about this family.

Eva Curie was born in 1904, was seven years younger than Irene and, unlike all her relatives, had not a technical, but a humanitarian mindset. Therefore, the youngest daughter of Pierre and Maria did not study physics and chemistry, as they did, and, as a teenager, announced to her mother that she would like to devote herself to art - music and theater.

Maria not only was not against it - she encouraged her youngest daughter in every possible way when she began to play the piano, and then give concerts, convincing her that she is talented and that it was not in vain that she chose this path. Thanks to her support, Eva achieved fame as a pianist, and later also as a music and theater critic, playwright and writer. Her most famous book was the biography of her mother, Madame Curie, written with great love for her parents and older sister. This book won the American National Literary Prize and was filmed in 1943. Eva Denise herself at this time worked as a war correspondent and was an active participant in the French Resistance.

Such short lives …

The youngest daughter of Marie Curie lived a very long life - one hundred and three years. It can be assumed that if it were not for the constant work with radioactive substances, her mother and sister could also become long-livers. But this did not happen: Maria died of radiation sickness when she was only 66 years old, becoming the first person in history to be killed by radiation. Even less lived Irene, who died at the age of 59 from leukemia.

Nevertheless, the radiation with which Maria Curie and her family worked is capable of not only killing, but also saving lives - and it was Maria Salome who also conducted the first experiments on treating various diseases with radium.