Marie Curie - Kathleen Krull [8]
He was so sure his pattern was correct that when arranging elements in rows, if the next heaviest known element didn’t conform to the pattern, Mendeleyev left a gap in the row and placed that particular element where its characteristics did fit the pattern. He understood that there must be a “missing” element, and at some point in the future, that new element would be discovered and slide into the gap.
In 1875, gallium was discovered, fitting in a gap under aluminum. In 1886, germanium was discovered, fitting in under silicon in a column that also included carbon, silicon, tin, and lead. As other new elements were discovered, Mendeleyev revised his table again and again.
The concept of the atom was nothing new. The Greek philosopher democritus in the fifth century B.C. had been the first to propose that nothing was smaller than the atom (from atomos, meaning “indivisible”).
Almost 2,500 years later, at the Sorbonne, the atom was still defined as “the smallest particle of matter.” End of story, no dispute. The nature of the atom was one of the few areas in science that was considered a closed case.
In other areas Marie had professors who said, “don’t trust what people teach you, and above all what I teach you.” In other words, think independently and test supposed “facts.” She was in heaven.
In 1893, she was one of only two women and hundreds of men pursuing a degree in physical sciences. She made herself ill over the upcoming final tests: “The nearer the examinations come the more I am afraid of not being ready.” She froze up during the difficult exam and was sure that she’d done badly. But when she went to hear the results of the exam, announced in order of merit, her name was read first. If the Sorbonne gave out gold medals, one would have been hers.
Now what? Something called the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry heard about Marie, this exceptional female student. It hired her to research the magnetic properties of various steels. The project involved work that demanded precision with much testing and graphing.
At the same time, she continued her studies, and in 1894 she earned a second degree, in mathematical sciences. did she come in first? No, Marie fell all the way to second place. Her plan at this point was to return to Poland and live with her father. With her two degrees she’d surely be in high demand as a teacher, able and willing to help her homeland.
It was in the spring of that year that she met Pierre Curie.
CHAPTER THREE
Magnetic Attraction
SHE HAD HEARD his name before. Pierre Curie was semi-famous. Currently he was head of the lab at the brand-new Paris School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry. It was because Marie needed a bigger lab space of her own that mutual friends thought to introduce them.
Her very first impression was of a “dreamer absorbed in his reflections.” Also, “he seemed to me very young.” But in fact he was thirty-five, nine years older than Marie.
He was intense, shy, so quiet as a schoolboy that teachers dismissed him, saying he had a “slow mind.” His handwriting was terrible and he couldn’t spell. (Today Pierre Curie would likely be diagnosed with a learning disability, perhaps dyslexia.) So he was educated at home by tutors. His father and grandfather, both doctors, taught him how observations could be made about things invisible to the naked eye. At sixteen, he went into physics at the Sorbonne, then into chemistry at the School of Pharmacy, publishing his first article at twenty-one. With his brother Jacques, a professor of chemistry, he was making exciting discoveries about quartz crystals, which would later have applications for cell phones, Tv tubes, quartz watches, and microphones. Pierre and Jacques also invented an early version of an electrometer, an instrument that measured electric charges. Other physicists considered it quite cool and were using it.
Brilliant indeed, but Pierre was also known as an eccentric. He was humble to a fault, absentminded. Thanks to his homeschooling,