Marie Curie’s Legacy with Dava Sobel

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Welcome to AMSEcast, coming to you from Oak Ridge, Tennessee,

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a global leader in science, technology, and innovation.

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My name is Alan Lowe, director of the American Museum

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of Science and Energy, and the K-25 History Center.

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Each episode of AMSEcast presents world-renowned authors,

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scientists, historians, policymakers, and everyone in between,

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sharing their insights on a variety of fascinating topics.

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Welcome to AMSEcast.

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On this episode, I’m so very glad to welcome back

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the award-winning science writer, Dava Sobel.

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The last time we featured Dava on AMSEcast, I put her through the

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ringer, and asked questions about four of her books, Longitude,

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Galileo’s Daughter, The Glass Universe, A More Perfect Heaven,

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and the play based on and in that book, And the Sun Stood Still.

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We did that all in one hour.

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Now today, I’m going to just focus on one book,

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her newest and it, too, is absolutely terrific.

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It’s titled The Elements of Marie Curie: How the

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Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science.

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So Dava, thanks so much for joining us once again on AMSEcast.

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I’m happy to be with you.

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It’s great to see you.

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This is a terrific book.

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I really enjoyed it, as always.

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Your works are just really so engaging.

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Let’s look at Marie Curie.

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I know that’s a name that most people know, but I don’t know if

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they know the details, and they certainly should read your book.

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What led her initially to a life and science, especially,

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as you note, at that time, there were so many restrictions

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on what a woman was expected to do in society.

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I think there are a few reasons.

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One is, she was born into a family of teachers.

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So, both her parents were teachers, and her father

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specifically taught physics at a boys academy in Warsaw.

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And she saw teaching as a potential career

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for herself, and then she was just interested.

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So, her father had, I think it was an analytical balance at home, he

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had a barometer, so there were scientific instruments around the house.

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And then, by her own description, there was a period in her life

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when she was seriously ill for about a year and couldn’t work.

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And during that time, she wrote a letter to her niece, and she

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talked about how she was watching silkworms in a jar, and she

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identified with them because, like them, she had had a goal.

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She was driven to do something without any assurance that she was

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doing the right thing or it would take her to a particular end point.

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She just had to do it.

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So, I think I’ll stick with her explanation.

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There was some kind of drive and grit that she had from a very early age.

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And she changed the world with that drive.

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Really, just an amazing person.

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When did she meet and marry Pierre?

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And how would you characterize that marriage?

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Living in Warsaw, she—which was then under Russian domination—she was

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barred from university study, so the only way she could pursue an advanced

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education was to go to Paris, which was a [laugh] difficult thing to achieve.

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She had to work for years as a governess to save money,

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she made a bargain with one of her older sisters, so

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they would help each other through the university there.

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And so, when she finally got there, she lived with her sister, who

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had become a medical doctor, and she got through a couple of advanced

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degrees, always with the idea that she would go back to Poland and teach.

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I say Poland.

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Poland really didn’t exist as a country

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then, but to her Polish heritage and culture.

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And then, while pursuing one of these degrees, her

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professor was so impressed with her, got her an outside

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job doing some research for the French steel industry.

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And as some friends of hers knew an older

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physicist who was familiar with magnetism.

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She was supposed to figure out which types of steel made the best magnets.

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So, her friends wanted her to meet this older person who

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might be a guide to her in some capacity, and that was Pierre.

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He was eight years older, he was teaching at an industrial school, but

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he was already recognized as a very brilliant but eccentric scientist.

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And they fell in love.

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And that was the end of her mission to go back to her native country and teach.

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And also she realized she really had a knack for and a great love of

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research, which would not have been possible for her to pursue in Warsaw.

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Whereas in Paris, there were opportunities.

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She was already living one of those opportunities.

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So, they got married in 1895, and she was able to continue working

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even when they had a child because Pierre’s father, who was widowed,

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moved in with them to take care of the baby so Marie could work.

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She had this totally supportive network, these men in her

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life, who all believed in her ability, and did whatever

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was needed to make it possible for her to continue working.

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You can certainly say they were a power couple when

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you look at what they accomplished together [laugh]

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Absolutely.

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And what’s strange is that the thing that made them

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famous started out as her project for her doctoral degree.

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It was just her project.

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He was busy doing something else, but when her results got really

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interesting and it looked like she was on the verge of discovering a new

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element, he dropped what he was doing and partnered with her in that way.

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That was a very smart move on his behalf [laugh] . So, we know

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for our few lis—I’m sure every listener knows this, but Marie

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Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the first—or

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is it still the only?—to win two in two separate disciplines?

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Is that correct?

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Yes, only one.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, the only one.

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So, she won in 1903 and 1911.

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So, you started telling us some about that research.

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Can you tell us in general what those Nobel Prizes were awarded for?

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What was the work that they were being recognized for?

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The same year that Marie married Pierre, X-rays were

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discovered, and there was tremendous excitement about that.

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I think in that first year, something like a

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thousand scientific papers were written about X-rays.

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And then in 1896 another kind of radiation, uranic rays were discovered.

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And people weren’t really drawn to that.

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They were so interested in X-rays that hardly

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anyone was paying attention to these uranic rays.

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But that’s what she chose to study for her dissertation.

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What were the rays?

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Everybody knew from the first announcement that they came from

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uranium, and they came from any uranium-containing compound.

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But what were they?

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Well, the first thing she did was to test every known

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element to see if any other element also gave off the

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rays, and sure enough, she found that thorium did.

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So, now you couldn’t really call them uranic rays.

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She began calling them Becquerel rays, in honor

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of Henri Becquerel, who had first announced them.

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And the Curies got to know him and spoke

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with him frequently during this research.

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And so, after she had tested all the known elements, she

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started testing various compounds that she could obtain.

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And some of them registered more of this radiant

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activity than could be explained even by pure uranium.

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And so, her hunch was there was an as yet undiscovered element that

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existed in tiny amounts in this uranium ore, which was called pitch blend.

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And so, the challenge was to chemically dissect

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the pitch blend and get at this component.

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And in the course of that work, she coined the term radioactive.

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Well, she and Pierre were both physicists, and now they have this big chemistry

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project to undertake, but had help, had a lot of advice, but they did the work.

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And she talks about being this very ill-equipped laboratory space

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that she had, stirring great vats of foul smelling liquids and

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trying to get at the very tiny fraction of radioactive material.

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But they did.

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They were able to isolate something they were sure was a new

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element, and they named it Polonium, in honor of her homeland.

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But then there was something else.

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They knew there was a second element, and they worked really

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hard to get that one, and that’s the one they named radium.

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So, it was back breaking physical work, but there was also

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the very delicate part of testing the outcome in really

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handmade equipment to measure the strength of the rays.

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Well, you really bring to life those conditions she worked under.

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They were in no way ideal conditions to make these really amazing discoveries.

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Right.

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And those discoveries led to the 1903 Nobel Prize

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in Physics, which they shared with Becquerel.

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So, they got half and he got half the prize, and

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then they were the center of great attention.

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And people visited the lab, and no one could

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believe the shabby conditions they had worked in.

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One scientist said it looked like a cross between a stable and

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a root cellar, [laugh] and he just thought it was a practical

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joke that they would pretend that was really their laboratory.

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So, what did she win for in 1911, in the—the second Nobel?

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In a way, it was the same thing.

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So, in 1911, the prize was for the discovery of radium and polonium, and

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the isolation of radium, which she had accomplished by herself in 1910.

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Which, to get at the tiny, you know, it took a ton of ore to get a

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fraction of a gram of a radium compound, just to get it to radium chloride.

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To get pure radium was another whole level of dangerous experiments.

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There was a danger of actually losing the material in the process.

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But she did that, and she was able to observe pure radium.

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That’s what got her the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry by herself.

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She didn’t share it with anyone.

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I see you’ve spent a good amount of time talking

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about her leadership in creating a radium standard.

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So, what did that entail?

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And why was it so important to do that?

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Well, for any kind of enterprise, manufacturing or in

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science, you need a standard of comparison, a baseline

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so that everyone is working from the same models.

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So, in Paris, there’s the International Bureau of Weights and

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Measures, and for a long time, there was an actual kilogram

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that was the basis of all weights all over the world, and an

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actual meter bar that was the basis of all length measurements.

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So, now they needed a standard of measurement for radioactivity.

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People were following up this research in Vienna, in England, in America, and

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each lab had its own standard, so you couldn’t compare the results they had.

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They were just… floating.

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If there was one standard, then everybody could say, “Okay,

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now we know the quantity we have based on this standard.”

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And from the international standard, there were secondaries made.

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And again, this is done with the kilogram and the meter.

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For a long time, every country had its own kilogram that was

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based on the official one, the international one, in Paris.

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So, the same thing with radioactivity.

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There were secondaries that were produced for the

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countries that were entering this new field of science.

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To simplify it in my way, apples to apples, being able to compare—

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Yes.

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—right, right?

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[laugh]

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.
Exactly.

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So, you talk about her role, a very important role that Marie and her

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lab played in pioneering the use of radiation in medical therapies.

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Can you talk with us a bit about her role in that?

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Yes.

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So, early on, she noticed that handling these materials

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made the skin on her hands peel, and sometimes her

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fingers would be numb or painful for weeks at a time.

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And Becquerel and Pierre both noticed that if they carried a vial of

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material in a coat pocket, they’d get a burn on their body from it.

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So, they published this, and the medical community immediately jumped on it.

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Well, if it destroys tissue, it could destroy cancerous tumors.

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And actually the first treatment of breast cancer

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with radiation took place in their laboratory.

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A doctor actually brought a couple of women to

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the lab to see if this would work, and it did.

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And the spread of it was really not something the Curies pursued.

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They gave the idea to the medical community, but

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then it was the medical community that developed it.

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But it’s also what gave her the reputation of a great

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humanitarian because for decades, radium was the cure for cancer.

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Right, that legacy we work with here today in Oak Ridge, creating

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isotopes, medical isotopes, radioactive isotopes, for all kinds

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of uses, based on that beginning that Marie Curie gave us.

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Speaking of beginnings, she gave the beginnings to scientific

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careers to many pretty amazing women you introduced us to.

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How best would you characterize Marie as a mentor and as a teacher?

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The number of women who passed through her lab, my learning about that is

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what inspired this book because I hadn’t known the tremendous influence

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she had, or the large number of women who came to work or study with her.

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So, she had been an actual teacher.

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She’d been a governess.

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She had taught in Paris.

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She taught at an academy for female teachers.

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So, she had long experience as a teacher, and applied that in the lab.

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And also when Pierre died in 1906—and this was most

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unusual at the time—she was given control of the laboratory

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they had shared, and his professorship at the Sorbonne.

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So, after they won the Nobel Prize, he got a professorship at the

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Sorbonne, and she took that over at his death in 1906, and his

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professorship, so she was actually teaching a university course in physics.

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There’s no question about her credentials as a teacher.

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And of course, she was more than willing to train other women because she knew

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the problems she had had becoming educated as a woman, so she was open to it.

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I wouldn’t say she sought them out, but she certainly didn’t keep them out.

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I know, in the interests of time, I want our listeners to

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go out and, of course, buy the book, but I thought maybe

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we could just look at a couple of the women you highlight.

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I’m going to mispronounce their names, Dava.

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So, glad you pronounced my name correctly.

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That’s very rare.

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[laugh] . Oh, very good.

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I love that.

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See, I’m still a farm boy from Kentucky.

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So, Ellen Gleditsch, and Marguerite Perey?

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00:17:12,700 --> 00:17:13,330
Is that—or Perey?

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00:17:14,260 --> 00:17:14,490
Perey.

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00:17:14,540 --> 00:17:15,000
Perey.

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00:17:15,010 --> 00:17:15,400
There you go.

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I was close.

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So very, very impressive.

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Can you tell us just a bit about their work with Marie

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and what they went on to do in their subsequent careers?

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So, Ellen Gleditsch was only the second woman to arrive

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at the lab, highly recommended by a colleague in Norway.

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And in Norway, there was no research yet in radioactivity, but

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Ellen was very interested in it, and really wanted to pursue that.

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So, Madam Curie gave her the opportunity, and right away, relied on

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Ellen’s ability as a chemist to take over the production of radium,

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which the final stages involved a lot of very careful hands-on chemistry.

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So, Ellen was doing that.

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And then Madame Curie partnered with her.

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They did a project together to disprove an important finding by Sir William

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Ramsey because he was dabbling in radioactivity, also—more than dabbling.

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And so, they published a paper together, Marie and Ellen.

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And Ellen stayed at the lab for five years and earned her doctoral

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degree while there, and then back in Norway, she became the

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first person to teach this new science anywhere in the country.

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And later she was involved in an international organization called

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the International Federation of University Women, which existed solely

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to foster women’s opportunities to get scholarship money for higher

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education, and to go abroad to do research in a foreign country.

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Very, very impressive.

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And what about Marguerite?

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So, Marguerite was the last of the women hired by Marie, just a couple of years

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before she died, and Marguerite had trained as a lab technician, and she was

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at the top of her class at the training school for female lab technicians.

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So, Marie hired her, and then immediately saw how talented

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she was, and trusted her with important experiments.

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And they were really trying to gather enough—I forget whether it

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was actinium or polonium, but it was a very important process that

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Marguerite had taken over for a particular test when Marie died.

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But she continued at the lab and she was allowed to work on her own,

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and in the process of pursuing this work—it must have been actinium

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because she discovered a new element, which she named francium.

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And then because of those achievements and her demonstrated

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ability, she was encouraged to go on and get a doctoral degree.

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She wrote her dissertation about the discovery of francium, and

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then she moved on to important positions at other universities,

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and eventually was the first woman admitted to the French

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Academy of Sciences, something Marie had not achieved.

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Yeah.

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Just amazing stories.

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And I think it puts a lot of pressure on everyone writing

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their dissertation, you know, when someone said, “Well, my

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dissertation, I discovered an element, by the way.” [laugh]

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.
Imagine that [laugh]

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.
So, Marie made trips to America, tours of America, in 1921

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and again in ’29 How was she received here in America?

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Oh, she was mobbed.

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People just loved her.

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They were all over her.

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In fact, in the first week, people were shaking her hand so

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enthusiastically she hurt her wrist and had to keep her arm in a sling.

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And it was overwhelming for her, a person who was quiet by nature.

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And she could not keep up with the schedule of social appearances.

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And her daughters, both her daughters, were with her on that trip.

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So sometimes, to an honorary degree ceremony, she would

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send one of the girls because she just couldn’t take it.

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I know she met with presidents, and—

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Yes.

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00:21:42,350 --> 00:21:45,403
—she was all over the—truly amazing story, just of that visit.

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And she was given these great gifts of riches.

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The rationale for her first visit was to make a gift

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00:21:53,129 --> 00:21:57,399
to her of a gram of radium from the women of America.

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00:21:58,340 --> 00:21:59,100
And they did it.

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00:21:59,140 --> 00:22:04,260
They raised $100,000 and gave her a gram of radium.

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Let’s talk a bit about another important woman

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00:22:07,150 --> 00:22:09,220
in her life, and that’s her daughter, Irene.

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00:22:09,230 --> 00:22:13,700
And Irene’s husband, Frédéric Joliot—am I saying that correct?

334
00:22:13,940 --> 00:22:16,180
Look at—I’m very impressed with myself, now [laugh]

335
00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:18,370
.
You are great, Alan [laugh]

336
00:22:19,340 --> 00:22:23,110
.
Now, Irene and Frederick, they won the Nobel Prize in 1935.

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00:22:24,219 --> 00:22:27,999
So, how had Marie and Pierre, did they cultivate Irene for this?

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00:22:28,839 --> 00:22:32,390
Was she prepared, in her youth to become yet another amazing scientist?

339
00:22:32,860 --> 00:22:37,350
Well, Pierre died when Irene was a child, but she

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00:22:37,360 --> 00:22:41,770
had certainly observed him and been close to him.

341
00:22:42,150 --> 00:22:46,619
And part of Marie’s grief at his death was—and she wrote about this

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00:22:46,619 --> 00:22:52,065
in a journal she kept for a year after his death—how she saw in Irene

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00:22:52,260 --> 00:22:58,439
the same personality that Pierre had, that same ability to get to the

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00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:04,019
heart of some question, and be willing to investigate things hands-on.

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00:23:04,299 --> 00:23:10,150
And when Irene was about 12, Marie actually created a little

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00:23:10,270 --> 00:23:14,559
co-op school because Pierre had never been able to sit still

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00:23:14,570 --> 00:23:18,440
in school, and they didn’t think the daughter could either.

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00:23:18,759 --> 00:23:22,749
So, Marie got together with some of her colleagues at the Sorbonne,

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00:23:23,230 --> 00:23:26,620
and they had this group of about a dozen kids who would just

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00:23:26,630 --> 00:23:31,500
go from university class—they learned physics in Madam Curie’s

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00:23:31,540 --> 00:23:36,969
lab, and they had art lessons at the Louvre from a real artist.

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This went on for about two years.

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00:23:39,730 --> 00:23:44,210
And then during World War I, when the daughter was 17,

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Marie just drafted her to come along and do the vital work.

355
00:23:49,290 --> 00:23:52,839
She pioneered in X-raying wounded soldiers.

356
00:23:53,270 --> 00:23:58,209
Irene had all of that in her growing up, and then she began working

357
00:23:58,209 --> 00:24:03,080
in the lab, and getting her—even during World War I, while she

358
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:07,540
was being a nurse and an X-ray technician, she was earning her

359
00:24:07,590 --> 00:24:12,480
undergraduate degree, and then went on and did her graduate degree

360
00:24:12,500 --> 00:24:18,100
in the lab, studying polonium, one of her parents’ discoveries.

361
00:24:18,340 --> 00:24:23,440
And then she married her lab partner, or the young man who had

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00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:27,670
been assigned to her so he could learn about radioactivity—that

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00:24:27,679 --> 00:24:32,299
was Frederick—and they seemed utterly mismatched.

364
00:24:32,660 --> 00:24:38,500
He was a very outgoing, handsome, eligible bachelor, and she was this

365
00:24:38,970 --> 00:24:45,940
tall, very taciturn, quiet woman with seemingly no social graces.

366
00:24:46,410 --> 00:24:51,160
They had another really wonderful marriage, were totally devoted to each

367
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:55,790
other, had two children who are still living and are also scientists.

368
00:24:55,870 --> 00:24:57,630
They’re both in their 90s.

369
00:24:57,810 --> 00:24:58,220
Wow.

370
00:24:58,470 --> 00:25:00,660
So, what did they win their Nobel for?

371
00:25:00,660 --> 00:25:01,980
They won it in, what, ’35.

372
00:25:01,980 --> 00:25:03,155
What was their Nobel [unintelligible]

373
00:25:03,450 --> 00:25:07,129
?
Well, very fittingly, you mentioned radio isotopes.

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00:25:07,230 --> 00:25:14,130
So, their discovery was that certain ordinary elements could be made

375
00:25:14,130 --> 00:25:20,190
radioactive briefly, but then they would lose their radioactivity without

376
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:25,580
going through a long chain of other radioactive daughter products.

377
00:25:25,940 --> 00:25:31,680
They were safer to use, and they could be artificially created in the lab.

378
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:35,860
You didn’t have to go through a ton of ore to make these things.

379
00:25:36,140 --> 00:25:41,850
So, it was revolutionary, and it what led to the whole

380
00:25:41,860 --> 00:25:45,189
change in the way cancer was treated with radioactivity.

381
00:25:45,819 --> 00:25:51,110
And then you could use these radio isotopes to tag components in

382
00:25:51,110 --> 00:25:58,060
experiments, so follow a certain cell, or whatever it might be, through a

383
00:25:58,060 --> 00:26:04,400
series of experiments and be able to identify it by the radio isotope tag.

384
00:26:04,750 --> 00:26:08,110
If I remember correctly, photosynthesis, that process, that was

385
00:26:08,110 --> 00:26:11,260
a big role in understanding better photosynthesis, for example.

386
00:26:11,260 --> 00:26:15,030
So, I wondered, did Irene play a role similar to

387
00:26:15,030 --> 00:26:17,970
Marie in advancing women scientists in her lab?

388
00:26:18,719 --> 00:26:20,760
Yes, in the same way.

389
00:26:21,059 --> 00:26:27,460
And she was a little more outspoken in—so she actually tried to get

390
00:26:27,470 --> 00:26:32,910
elected to the French Academy of Sciences several times as a way to

391
00:26:32,910 --> 00:26:38,030
demonstrate how ridiculous it was that they were still barring women

392
00:26:38,389 --> 00:26:44,090
in the 1940s and ’50s, especially a woman who had won a Nobel Prize.

393
00:26:44,230 --> 00:26:45,840
But she didn’t get in either [laugh]

394
00:26:46,120 --> 00:26:47,330
.
I was shocked by that.

395
00:26:47,370 --> 00:26:48,230
Absolutely shocked.

396
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:50,730
So, how would you compare Marie and Irene?

397
00:26:51,210 --> 00:26:52,850
Were they similar personalities?

398
00:26:52,850 --> 00:26:54,250
I know, obviously brilliant.

399
00:26:54,750 --> 00:26:55,040
Yeah.

400
00:26:55,090 --> 00:26:59,969
Obviously brilliant, obviously ready to meet any challenge.

401
00:27:00,279 --> 00:27:06,120
I think Irene was perhaps a little more comfortable on the world stage than

402
00:27:06,120 --> 00:27:14,190
Marie, but they certainly shared interests and a complete devotion to research.

403
00:27:14,599 --> 00:27:16,209
You mentioned Marie’s journals earlier.

404
00:27:16,209 --> 00:27:18,800
I was just curious, are those easily accessible?

405
00:27:18,850 --> 00:27:19,760
Are they been published?

406
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:21,669
How do you access those journals?

407
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,440
Because she’s Madam Curie, everything has been digitized.

408
00:27:26,780 --> 00:27:31,869
So, you can read her handwritten grief journal online.

409
00:27:31,910 --> 00:27:35,770
It’s held in the archives of the French National Library.

410
00:27:35,830 --> 00:27:40,340
And that was so helpful to me because I wrote this

411
00:27:40,370 --> 00:27:43,190
book during the pandemic, and I couldn’t go to Paris.

412
00:27:44,050 --> 00:27:47,939
So, I was worried at first, how would I do anything?

413
00:27:48,490 --> 00:27:54,060
But I was mightily impressed by that website, and also

414
00:27:54,109 --> 00:27:59,250
all of the weekly publications of the Academy of Sciences.

415
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:03,990
You can read those online back a few centuries.

416
00:28:05,130 --> 00:28:07,830
Thank goodness for that world during the pandemic.

417
00:28:09,170 --> 00:28:11,460
You know, I don’t know what we would have done [laugh] , and

418
00:28:11,510 --> 00:28:15,230
we certainly learned here at AMSE how to do things like podcast

419
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,909
during that to get the word out and to help continue our education

420
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:23,709
mission, and you’ve been a big part of that now twice, Dava.

421
00:28:23,770 --> 00:28:24,900
What’s next for you?

422
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:29,607
Well, I’m still in the postpartum phase with Madam Curie.

423
00:28:29,607 --> 00:28:31,179
I can’t get right on a new project.

424
00:28:31,990 --> 00:28:36,690
But I do have thoughts on a—I’m looking for other stories about

425
00:28:36,690 --> 00:28:42,310
women in science because I’m now focused on that, having been

426
00:28:42,670 --> 00:28:49,199
sensitized to its importance as an issue even now, especially now.

427
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:56,190
But I also edit a column in Scientific American about poetry about science.

428
00:28:56,990 --> 00:29:02,979
I commission poems or get through the welter of submissions,

429
00:29:03,009 --> 00:29:07,820
which are many, and a poem about science appears in every issue.

430
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:09,200
That’s terrific.

431
00:29:09,220 --> 00:29:09,480
Wow.

432
00:29:09,500 --> 00:29:11,569
You’re a busy person, Dava, and I appreciate

433
00:29:11,590 --> 00:29:12,960
you making time to join us in AMSEcast.

434
00:29:13,260 --> 00:29:14,470
I really enjoyed it as always.

435
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:15,540
Thank you so much.

436
00:29:15,950 --> 00:29:16,730
Thank you.

437
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:24,599
Thank you for joining us on this episode of AMSEcast.

438
00:29:24,969 --> 00:29:29,280
For more information on this topic or any others, you can always visit us at

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00:29:41,859 --> 00:29:46,030
You can also shop at our online store and become a member at AMSE.org.

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Thanks to our production team with Matt Mullins, plus our supportive colleagues

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And of course, thanks to our wonderful guests

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today, and to all of you for listening.

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00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:10,930
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