Marie Curie

“ 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 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." ”

“ He is likewise to be found occasionally in the walks of literature, and where a woman is concerned in matters artistic will “down” her if he can. He has always done his best to hinder woman from receiving any acknowledgment for superior intellectual ability. Notably one may quote the case of Madame Curie, the discoverer of radium. Coward Adam says she discovered it by “a fluke”—that is to say, by chance. Most great discoveries occur, even to men, in the same way. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We must make more or fewer compromises according as we feel ourselves feebler or stronger. If one does not make enough concessions he is crushed; if he makes too many he is ignoble and despises himself. ”

“ It is her conviction, her philosophy, that "In science we should be interested in things, not persons." ”

“ For the admirable gift of himself, and for the magnificent service he renders humanity, what reward does our society offer the scientist? Have these servants of an idea the necessary means of work? Have they an assured existence, sheltered from care? The example of Pierre Curie, and of others, shows that they have none of these things; and that more often, before they can secure possible working conditions, they have to exhaust their youth and their powers in daily anxieties. Our society, in which reigns an eager desire for riches and luxury, does not understand the value of science. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I myself am no longer young, and I frequently ask myself whether, in spite of recent efforts of the government aided by some private donations, I shall ever succeed in building up for those who will come after me an Institute of Radium, such as I wish to the memory of Pierre Curie and to the highest interest of humanity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Can we fully imagine the regret of an enthusiastic and disinterested worker in a great work, who is retarded in the realization of his dream by the constant lack of means? And can we think without a feeling of profound grief of the waste—the one irreparable one—of the nation's greatest asset: the genius, the powers, and the courage of its best children?
Pierre Curie had always in mind his urgent need for a good laboratory. ”

“ I have been frequently questioned, especially by women, how I could reconcile family life with a scientific career. Well, it has not been easy; ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have been far from all immediate care, and so isolated by our manner of living that we have not even been able to receive a letter, never knowing one night where we would sleep the next. At times it seemed to me that we had gone back to the days when we lived entirely together. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We can see, however, in the letters I have quoted earlier, the unshakeable faith that Pierre Curie had in science and in its power to further the general good of humanity. It seems appropriate to apply to him the sentiment expressed by Pasteur in words so well known: "I believe invincibly that science and peace will triumph over ignorance and war." ”

“ For measuring the very feeble currents that one can make pass through air ionized by uranium rays, I had at my disposition an excellent method developed and applied by Pierre and Jacques Curie. This method consists in counterbalancing on a sensitive electrometer the quantity of electricity carried by the current with that which a piezo-electric quartz can furnish. ”

“ One can understand, from this letter, that for Pierre Curie there was only one way of looking at the future. He had dedicated his life to his dream of science: he felt the need of a companion who could live his dream with him. He told me many times that the reason he had not married until he was thirty-six was because he did not believe in the possibility of a marriage which would meet this, his absolute necessity.
When he was twenty-two years old he wrote in his diary:
"Women, much more than men, love life for life's sake. ”

“ André Debierne gladly accepted Pierre Curie's proposal that he occupy himself with the investigation of radioactivity; and he undertook, in particular, the search for a new radio element, which we suspected existed in the iron group and in rare earths. He discovered the element actinium. Even though he carried on his work in the laboratory of physical chemistry at the Sorbonne, directed by Jean Perrin, he frequently came to visit us in our storeroom, and was soon an intimate friend of ours, and of Doctor Curie and the children. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The year 1903 was especially important in the development of the new science. In this year the investigation of radium, the new chemical element, was achieved, and Pierre Curie demonstrated the astonishing discharge of heat by this element, which nevertheless remained unaltered in appearance. In England, Ramsay and Soddy announced a great discovery. They proved that radium continually produces helium gas and under conditions that force one to believe in an atomic transformation. ”

“ Finally, the collectors of autographs, snobs, society people, and even at times, scientists, have come to see us—in our magnificent and tranquil quarters in the laboratory—and every evening there has been a voluminous correspondence to send off. ”

“ In every phenomenon the elements of symmetry compatible with its existence may be determined. Certain elements can coexist with certain phenomena, but they are not necessary to them. That which is necessary is that certain ones among these elements shall not exist. It is dissymmetry that creates the phenomenon. When several phenomena are superposed in the same system, the dissymmetries are added together. "Works of Pierre Curie," page 127. ”

“ And now, let us glance at this narrative as a whole, in which I have attempted to evoke the image of a man who, inflexibly devoted to the service of his ideal, honored humanity by an existence lived in silence, in the simple grandeur of his genius and his character. ”

“ The mother was slight, vivid in character, and, even though her health had suffered through the birth of her sons, was always gay and active in the simple home that she so well knew how to make attractive and hospitable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In spite of our desire to concentrate our entire effort on the work in which we were engaged, and in spite of the fact that our needs were so modest, we were forced to recognize, toward 1900, that some increase in our income was indispensable. Pierre Curie had few illusions about his chances of obtaining an important chair in the University of Paris, which would, even though it meant no large salary, have sufficed for the small needs of our family, and enabled us to live without a supplementary revenue. ”

“ In many cases, up to the present, no exterior action has shown itself effective in influencing the transformation.
This rapid succession of discoveries which overthrew familiar scientific conceptions long held in physics and chemistry did not fail to meet, at first, with doubts and incredulity. But the great part of the scientific world received them with enthusiasm. At the same time Pierre Curie's fame grew in France and in foreign countries. ”

“ 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. ”