Alternate Title
from: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230907-the-fear-of-a-nuclear-fire-that-would-consume-earth
Marie Curie’s revelations about radioactivity in the early 1900s helped change the course of human history.
Comment
Scientific instruments in the 1900’s are as inscrutable as the scientific instruments now. Definitely not your basic chemistry set.
I believe her notes are still radioactive to this day and one must wear protection to handle them
Plus basically everywhere in that lab she laid hands.
So are her remains I believe. Her tomb in the Pantheon is lined with lead.
What a lass.
Obligatory historical note: her full name was Maria Skłodowska-Curie. She was Polish and proud of it. The first element she discovered she named polonium in honor of her country (which had been broken up and annexed by Russia, Austria, and Prussia). Go to Poland and Poles will be sure to let you know. They view it as a matter of stolen intellectual valor, practically.
Stolen valor? Why? She was born Polish but adopted French nationality when she married Pierre Curie.
Furthermore, in France administrative papers, wife’s birth name are always mentioned. Marie Curie née Skłodowska.
Finally, not a single French ignores she was born Polish, and we got a huge community of Polish descendants in France.
Not trying to start an argument, friend. I was trying to relate my observation of how many Poles emphatically do not want Skłodowska-Curie’s Polish heritage to be overlooked or forgotten.
I think it comes down to her maiden name being omitted broadly in the public. For example, look at the title of the post—it is the French version of her name. I’m not laying any blame on OP, however. My science classes all the way through high school never gave her full, hyphenated surname. I had assumed she was French until I was taught otherwise by Poles.
I’m glad you already knew. Good on you!
No, we are not.
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Could she be the only Nobel prize winner whose children went on to win a Nobel prize too?
I think there have been a few more. William Henry Bragg & his son Lawrence Bragg. Niels Bohr & his son Aage Bohr. And more…
She was amazing in the real sense of that word.
So much so that she was respected by male scientists in a era that women were still considered inferior and couldn’t even vote in most places. The STEAM areas are still a chalenge for woman to this day, imagine how much of a boss you would have to be on the 1800 early 1900
I don’t think that last statement is correct. IIRC, several people have subsequently gotten Nobels in multiple disciplines.
Yes, there have been. They won in the same fields twice, different fields twice, but looks like none except Marie Curie that won in two different scientific fields.
You’re exactly right.
Linus Pauling did win for Chemistry and his second was in Peace. All before he went nuts for vitamin C pseudoscience.
You are technically correct, the best kind of correct.
😉 Just following Wikipedia’s statement.
