Marie Curie - Kathleen Krull [31]
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