Marie Curie - Kathleen Krull [16]
At last she was able to calculate the atomic weights of her new elements. Triumphantly she placed radium on Mendeleyev’s chart below barium in the column of alkaline earth metals. It belonged in the same column as similar elements, mostly silver-white, shiny metals.
Also triumphantly, she wrote the news to her ailing father back in Poland. While proud of her, he didn’t quite grasp the magnitude of her accomplishment, writing back, “What a pity it is that this work has only theoretical interest.” He died six days later, incredibly wrong on this particular subject.
Working hard was all the more urgent because the race to learn more about radiation was getting so intense that sometimes mere days separated one person’s discovery from another’s. This was an epic contest to be first to discover major truths about the nature of our universe. Marie was prepared to do whatever it took to win.
One of her chief competitors examining rays was New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford, a protégé of J. J. Thomson, the genius who had identified electrons as the first subatomic particles. In 1899, Rutherford published a paper distinguishing two different kinds of particles emanating from radioactive substances. What he called “beta rays” traveled nearly at the speed of light and were able to penetrate thick barriers. “Alpha rays” were more powerful particles, yet were slower and heavier and could be more easily deflected, even by something as simple as a thick layer of aluminum foil.
Rutherford complained, “I have to publish my present work as rapidly as possible in order to keep in the race” against the “best sprinters,” meaning, above all, the Curies.
Meanwhile, the question came up about whether Marie and Pierre would apply for a patent for producing radium. If they kept the secret to themselves, they stood to make a lot of money. No longer on the edge of poverty as they had been during the first five years of their marriage, the Curies were far from rich. All her life Marie saved string, recycled cardboard to write notes on, patched umbrellas to make them last longer, wore dresses until they were threadbare.
But they both vetoed the patent idea. Although aware she was “sacrificing a fortune,” Marie believed it “would be contrary to the scientific spirit.” Early on she theorized that radium’s best use would be medical, and “it seems to me impossible to take advantage of that.” Marie and Pierre believed their findings should be available to everyone.
At the same time they were doing their historic work, the Curies were both teaching in order to bring in money. Pierre began teaching at the Sorbonne. He was a gifted teacher, conveying his enthusiasm and having “the laugh of a child,” according to one student. Marie was appointed to the faculty at the premier school for training teachers, in Sèvres, France. The first woman ever. As the lecturer in physics, she was surprisingly awkward at first. Her speaking style was intense, but monotonous.
Curiously, at this point in their lives, they both found time to attend several séances, particularly with a famous Italian “medium.” Like some other scientists of the day, the Curies kept an open mind about spiritualism, the belief that communication with the dead was possible. They weren’t interested in contacting any dead person in particular, they just wanted to explore the possibilities. “It is human nature to believe that the phenomena we know are the only ones that exist,” Marie wrote, “and whenever some chance discovery extends the limits of our knowledge we are filled with amazement.” She was talking about radioactivity, but she could almost have been talking about the supernatural: “We cannot become accustomed to the idea that we live in a world that is revealed to us only in a restricted portion