Marie Curie

“ I tried out various experiments described in treatises on physics and chemistry, and the results were sometimes unexpected. At times I would be encouraged by a little unhoped-for success, at others I would be in the deepest despair because of accidents and failures resulting from my inexperience. But on the whole, though I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy, this first trial confirmed in me the taste for experimental research in the fields of physics and chemistry. ”

“ At least, I thought there might be as much as one per cent of the unknown substance in the minerals. But the more we worked, the clearer we realized that the new radioactive element could exist only in quite minute proportion and that, in consequence, its activity must be very great. Would we have insisted, despite the scarcity of our means of research, if we had known the true proportion of what we were searching for, no one can tell; all that can be said now is that the constant progress of our work held us absorbed in a passionate research, while the difficulties were ever increasing. ”

“ Probably my finest memories of my school years are those of moments passed there standing before the blackboard where he took pleasure in talking with us, in awakening in us fruitful ideas, and in discussions of research which formed our taste for the things of science. His live and contagious curiosity, the fullness and surety of his information made him an admirable awakener of spirits. ”

“ But what is even more to be considered is the objection of many of our friends, who have argued, not without reason, that if we had guaranteed our rights, we could have had the financial means of founding a satisfactory Institute of Radium, without experiencing any of the difficulties that have been such a handicap to both of us, and are still a handicap to me. Yet, I still believe that we have done right.
Humanity, surely, needs practical men who make the best of their work for the sake of their own interests, without forgetting the general interest. ”

“ It does not realize that science is a most precious part of its moral patrimony. Nor does it take sufficient cognizance of the fact that science is at the base of all the progress that lightens the burden of life and lessens its suffering. Neither public powers nor private generosity actually accord to science and to scientists the support and the subsidies indispensable to fully effective work. ”

“ I have had to give up going to Sweden. We are, as you see, most irregular in our relations with the Swedish Academy; but, to tell the truth, I can only keep up by avoiding all physical fatigue. And my wife is in the same condition; we can no longer dream of the great work days of times gone by.
"As to research, I am doing nothing at present. With my course, my students, apparatus to install, and the interminable procession of people who come to disturb me without serious reason, the days pass without my having been able to achieve anything useful at this end." ”

“ It would, nevertheless, be a beautiful thing in which I hardly dare believe, to pass through life together hypnotized in our dreams: your dream for your country; our dream for humanity; our dream for science. ”

“ When, in the process of turning slowly upon myself, I try to gain momentum, a nothing, a word, a story, a paper, a visit stops me and is able to put off or retard forever the moment when, granted a sufficient swiftness I might have, in spite of my surroundings, concentrated on my own intention.... We must eat, drink, sleep, be idle, love, touch the sweetest things of life and yet not succumb to them. ”

“ Oh, I have none," she corrected. "It belongs to my laboratory."
I suggested royalties on her patents. Surely she had protected her right to the processes by which radium is produced. The revenue from such patents should have made her a very rich woman.
Quietly, and without any seeming consciousness of the tremendous renunciation, she said, "There were no patents. We were working in the interests of science. Radium was not to enrich any one. Radium is an element. It belongs to all people." ”

“ From the point of view of scientific investigation, one must recognize that the nomination of Pierre Curie to the School of Physics and Chemistry retarded from the very first his experimental research. Indeed, at the time of his appointment nothing yet existed in that establishment; everything had to be created. Even the walls and the partitions were hardly yet in place. He had, therefore, to organize completely the laboratory and its work, and he acquitted himself of this task in a remarkable manner, injecting into it the spirit of precision and originality so characteristic of him. ”

“ All those who knew him knew their pleasure and surety in his acquaintance, and the delicate charm that was exhaled, one might say, by his gentle modesty, by his naïve directness, by the fineness of his spirit. Always ready to efface himself before his family, before his friends, and even before his rivals, he was what one calls a 'poor candidate'; but in our democracy candidates are the least thing we lack. ”

“ The greatest courtesy was paid me in my visit to the radium plant and laboratory. I found the same reception at a factory of mesothorium which presented me with some material, and where the officials expressed the desire to help in my scientific work.
To make complete these travel impressions it would be necessary to speak of the nature of the country. I recoil before the task, being incapable of expressing in a few words the immensity and the variety of the spaces which opened before my eyes. The general impression is one of unlimited possibilities for the future. ”

“ Believing only in the pacific might of science and of reason, he lived for the search of truth. Without prejudice or parti pris, he carried the same loyalty into his study of things that he used in his understanding of other men and of himself. Detached from every common passion, seeking neither supremacy nor honors, he had no enemies, even though the effort he had achieved in the control of himself had made of him one of those elect whom we find in advance of their time in all the epochs of civilization. ”

“ While my paternal grandfather had divided his time between agriculture and directing a provincial college, my father, more strongly drawn to study, followed the course of the University of Petrograd, and later definitely established himself at Warsaw as Professor of Physics and Mathematics in one of the lyceums of that city. He married a young woman whose mode of life was congenial to his; for, although very young, she had, what was, for that time, a very serious education, and was the director of one of the best Warsaw schools for young girls. ”

“ As for the radium prepared by me out of the ore we managed to obtain in the first years of our work, I have given it all to my laboratory.
The price of radium is very high since it is found in minerals in very small quantities, and the profits of its manufacture have been great, as this substance is used to cure a number of diseases. So it is a fortune which we have sacrificed in renouncing the exploitation of our discovery, a fortune that could, after us, have gone to our children. ”

“ I have wished above all, in gathering together here these few memories, in a bouquet reverently placed upon his tomb, to help, if I can, to fix the image of a man truly great in character and in thought, of a wonderful representative of the genius of our race. ”

“ A radioactive atom can transform itself in two ways: it can expel from itself an atom of helium, which, thrown off at an enormous speed and with a positive charge, constitutes an Alpha ray. Or, instead, it can detach from its structure a much smaller fragment, one of those electrons to which we have become accustomed in modern physics, and whose mass, 1800 times smaller than that of an atom of hydrogen when its speed is moderate, grows excessively when its speed approaches that of light. These electrons, which carry a negative charge, form the Beta rays. ”

“ THE LIFE STORY OF PIERRE CURIE
INTRODUCTION BY MRS. WILLIAM BROWN MELONEY
Every little while a man or a woman is born to serve in some big way. Such a one surely is Marie Curie. Her discovery of radium has advanced science, relieved human suffering and enriched the world. The spirit in which she has done her work has challenged the minds and souls of men.
One morning in the spring of 1898, when the United States was going to war with Spain, Madame Curie stepped forth from a crude shack on the outskirts of Paris, with the greatest secret of the century literally in the palm of her hand. ”

“ You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful. ”

“ Thus, for Pierre Curie, the sensation of well-being he experienced in the country was derived from the opportunity for tranquil reflection. Daily life in Paris with its numerous interruptions did not permit of undisturbed concentration, and this was to him a cause of inquietude and suffering. He felt himself destined for scientific research; for him the necessity was imperative of comprehending the phenomena of Nature in order to form a satisfactory theory to explain them. ”

“ We acknowledge also all the greatness of the soul where these fine qualities of intelligence and character were united in a most noble unselfishness and most exquisite goodness.
"Those who have known Pierre Curie, know that, near him one felt awaken the need to do and to understand. We will try to honor his memory by spreading abroad this impression, and we will ask his pale and beautiful face for the secret of that radiation which made all those who approached him better men." ”

“ "Radium is not to enrich any one. It is an element; it is for all people." ”

“ Women of genius are rare. And when, pushed by some mystic love, we wish to enter into a life opposed to nature, when we give all our thoughts to some work which removes us from those immediately about us, it is with women that we have to struggle, and the struggle is nearly always an unequal one. ”

“ A man may exhaust himself by work, and yet live, at best, miserably. This is a revolting fact, but it will not, because of that, cease. It will disappear probably because man is a kind of machine, and it is of economic advantage to make every machine work in its normal manner, without forcing it."
He felt the same necessity for clarity and understanding in considering his own inner life as in examining a general problem. A great necessity of loyalty to himself and toward others made him suffer from the compromises imposed by life, even though he reduced them to a minimum. ”

“ When most of us shall have been forgotten, when even the Great World War shall have dwindled to a few pages in the history books, when Governments shall have fallen and risen and fallen again, the work of Marie Curie will be remembered. ”

“ I devised a very satisfactory method for determining the quantity of radium by the means of a radioactive gas produced by it and called "emanation." This method, frequently used in my laboratory, permits of the measurement of very small quantities of radium (less than a thousandth of a milligramme) , with a fair precision. More important quantities are often measured by their penetrating radiation, named Gamma-rays. For this we also possess in my laboratory a suitable equipment. It is easier and more satisfactory to measure the radium by the emitted rays, than to weigh it in a balance. ”

“ She had contributed to the progress of science and the relief of human suffering, and yet, in the prime of her life she was without the tools which would enable her to make further contribution of her genius. ”

“ Meloney for the American women, the address of President Harding, a few words of gratitude said by me, a defile of the guests, and a group picture for a souvenir, all this in the admirable setting of the White House, peaceful and dignified, white indeed between its green lawns with wide prospects on that beautiful afternoon of May. A remembrance never to be forgotten was left by this reception in which the chief representative of a great nation offered me homage of infinite value, the testimonial of the recognition of his country's citizens. ”

“ I was now about to undertake a detailed study of the uranium and thorium rays when I discovered a new interesting fact.
I had occasion to examine a certain number of minerals. A few of them showed activity; they were those containing either uranium or thorium. The activity of these minerals would have had nothing astonishing about it, if it had been in proportion to the quantities of uranium or thorium contained in them. But it was not so. Some of these minerals revealed an activity three or four times greater than that of uranium. ”

“ In order that, weak one that I am, I shall not let my head turn with all the winds, yielding to the least breath that touches it, it is necessary that all should be immobile about me, or that, like a spinning top, movement alone should render me insensible to external objects. ”

“ I did not know then that great bags of mail from all parts of the world lay piled up in her laboratory where there was no secretary, while Madame Curie with her X-ray apparatus was at the front, relieving suffering and saving lives.
In May, 1919, another mission took me to Paris and I resolved to see Madame Curie myself. My friend, Stéphane Lauzanne, Editor-in-Chief of Le Matin, said: "Give it up. Become interested in something else; she will see no one. She does nothing but work." ”

“ I was as much interested in literature and sociology as in science. However, during these years of isolated work, trying little by little to find my real preferences, I finally turned towards mathematics and physics, and resolutely undertook a serious preparation for future work. This work I proposed doing in Paris, and I hoped to save enough money to be able to live and work in that city for some time.
My solitary study was beset with difficulties. The scientific education I had received at the lyceum was very incomplete; it was well under the bachelorship program of a French lyceum ”

“ Like them he was able to exercise a profound influence merely by the radiation of his inner strength.
It is useful to learn how much sacrifice such a life represents. The life of a great scientist in his laboratory is not, as many may think, a peaceful idyll. More often it is a bitter battle with things, with one's surroundings, and above all with oneself. A great discovery does not leap completely achieved from the brain of the scientist, as Minerva sprang, all panoplied, from the head of Jupiter ”

“ His work in this field is fundamental, and even though he was led away from it later by other investigations, he always retained a passionate interest in the physics of crystals, as well as in projects of further research in this domain.
The principle of symmetry to which Pierre Curie had so eagerly devoted himself is one of the small number of great principles which dominate the study of the phenomena of physics, and which, having their root in ideas derived by experiment, yet little by little detach themselves and assume a form more and more general and more and more perfect. ”

“ This became known in France as the Curie electrometer. Thus these years of collaboration between the two brothers, always intimately united, proved both happy and fruitful. Their devotion and their common interest in science were to them both a stimulant and a support. During their work the vivacity and energy of Jacques were of precious aid to Pierre, always more easily absorbed by his thoughts. ”

“ Between the days of fecund productivity are inserted days of uncertainty when nothing seems to succeed, and when even matter itself seems hostile; and it is then that one must hold out against discouragement. Thus without ever forsaking his inexhaustible patience, Pierre Curie used sometimes to say to me: "It is nevertheless hard, this life that we have chosen." ”

“ The foregoing brief exposition reveals the high philosophic import of these conceptions of symmetry which touch all natural phenomena, and whose profound significance Pierre Curie so clearly set forth. It is interesting in this connection to recall the relation which Pasteur saw between these same conceptions and the manifestations of life. "The universe," he said, "is a dissymmetric whole. I am led to believe that life, as it is revealed to us, must be a function of the dissymmetry of the universe, or of the consequences that it involves." ”