Marie Curie’s Legacy with Dava Sobel

0:04 Welcome to AMSEcast, coming to you from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a global leader in science, technology, and innovation. My name is Alan Lowe, director of the American Museum of Science and Energy, and the K-25 History Center. Each episode of AMSEcast presents world-renowned authors, scientists, historians, policymakers, and everyone in between, sharing their insights on a variety of fascinating topics. Welcome to AMSEcast. On this episode, I’m so very glad to welcome back the award-winning science writer, Dava Sobel. The last time we featured Dava on AMSEcast, I put her through the ringer, and asked questions about four of her books, Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter, The Glass Universe, A More Perfect Heaven, and the play based on and in that book, And the Sun Stood Still.

0:58 We did that all in one hour. Now today, I’m going to just focus on one book, her newest and it, too, is absolutely terrific. It’s titled The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science. So Dava, thanks so much for joining us once again on AMSEcast. I’m happy to be with you. It’s great to see you. This is a terrific book. I really enjoyed it, as always. Your works are just really so engaging. Let’s look at Marie Curie. I know that’s a name that most people know, but I don’t know if they know the details, and they certainly should read your book. What led her initially to a life and science, especially, as you note, at that time, there were so many restrictions on what a woman was expected to do in society.

1:43 I think there are a few reasons. One is, she was born into a family of teachers. So, both her parents were teachers, and her father specifically taught physics at a boys academy in Warsaw. And she saw teaching as a potential career for herself, and then she was just interested. So, her father had, I think it was an analytical balance at home, he had a barometer, so there were scientific instruments around the house. And then, by her own description, there was a period in her life when she was seriously ill for about a year and couldn’t work.

2:24 And during that time, she wrote a letter to her niece, and she talked about how she was watching silkworms in a jar, and she identified with them because, like them, she had had a goal. She was driven to do something without any assurance that she was doing the right thing or it would take her to a particular end point. She just had to do it. So, I think I’ll stick with her explanation. There was some kind of drive and grit that she had from a very early age.

3:07 And she changed the world with that drive. Really, just an amazing person. When did she meet and marry Pierre? And how would you characterize that marriage? Living in Warsaw, she—which was then under Russian domination—she was barred from university study, so the only way she could pursue an advanced education was to go to Paris, which was a [laugh] difficult thing to achieve. She had to work for years as a governess to save money, she made a bargain with one of her older sisters, so they would help each other through the university there. And so, when she finally got there, she lived with her sister, who had become a medical doctor, and she got through a couple of advanced degrees, always with the idea that she would go back to Poland and teach.

4:02 I say Poland. Poland really didn’t exist as a country then, but to her Polish heritage and culture. And then, while pursuing one of these degrees, her professor was so impressed with her, got her an outside job doing some research for the French steel industry. And as some friends of hers knew an older physicist who was familiar with magnetism. She was supposed to figure out which types of steel made the best magnets. So, her friends wanted her to meet this older person who might be a guide to her in some capacity, and that was Pierre.

4:44 He was eight years older, he was teaching at an industrial school, but he was already recognized as a very brilliant but eccentric scientist. And they fell in love. And that was the end of her mission to go back to her native country and teach. And also she realized she really had a knack for and a great love of research, which would not have been possible for her to pursue in Warsaw. Whereas in Paris, there were opportunities. She was already living one of those opportunities. So, they got married in 1895, and she was able to continue working even when they had a child because Pierre’s father, who was widowed, moved in with them to take care of the baby so Marie could work.

5:40 She had this totally supportive network, these men in her life, who all believed in her ability, and did whatever was needed to make it possible for her to continue working. You can certainly say they were a power couple when you look at what they accomplished together [laugh] . Absolutely. And what’s strange is that the thing that made them famous started out as her project for her doctoral degree. It was just her project. He was busy doing something else, but when her results got really interesting and it looked like she was on the verge of discovering a new element, he dropped what he was doing and partnered with her in that way.

6:25 That was a very smart move on his behalf [laugh] . So, we know for our few lis—I’m sure every listener knows this, but Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the first—or is it still the only?—to win two in two separate disciplines? Is that correct? Yes, only one. Yeah. Yeah, the only one. So, she won in 1903 and 1911. So, you started telling us some about that research. Can you tell us in general what those Nobel Prizes were awarded for? What was the work that they were being recognized for? The same year that Marie married Pierre, X-rays were discovered, and there was tremendous excitement about that. I think in that first year, something like a thousand scientific papers were written about X-rays.

7:10 And then in 1896 another kind of radiation, uranic rays were discovered. And people weren’t really drawn to that. They were so interested in X-rays that hardly anyone was paying attention to these uranic rays. But that’s what she chose to study for her dissertation. What were the rays? Everybody knew from the first announcement that they came from uranium, and they came from any uranium-containing compound. But what were they? Well, the first thing she did was to test every known element to see if any other element also gave off the rays, and sure enough, she found that thorium did.

7:55 So, now you couldn’t really call them uranic rays. She began calling them Becquerel rays, in honor of Henri Becquerel, who had first announced them. And the Curies got to know him and spoke with him frequently during this research. And so, after she had tested all the known elements, she started testing various compounds that she could obtain. And some of them registered more of this radiant activity than could be explained even by pure uranium. And so, her hunch was there was an as yet undiscovered element that existed in tiny amounts in this uranium ore, which was called pitch blend.

8:43 And so, the challenge was to chemically dissect the pitch blend and get at this component. And in the course of that work, she coined the term radioactive. Well, she and Pierre were both physicists, and now they have this big chemistry project to undertake, but had help, had a lot of advice, but they did the work. And she talks about being this very ill-equipped laboratory space that she had, stirring great vats of foul smelling liquids and trying to get at the very tiny fraction of radioactive material.

9:28 But they did. They were able to isolate something they were sure was a new element, and they named it Polonium, in honor of her homeland. But then there was something else. They knew there was a second element, and they worked really hard to get that one, and that’s the one they named radium. So, it was back breaking physical work, but there was also the very delicate part of testing the outcome in really handmade equipment to measure the strength of the rays. Well, you really bring to life those conditions she worked under.

10:11 They were in no way ideal conditions to make these really amazing discoveries. Right. And those discoveries led to the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics, which they shared with Becquerel. So, they got half and he got half the prize, and then they were the center of great attention. And people visited the lab, and no one could believe the shabby conditions they had worked in. One scientist said it looked like a cross between a stable and a root cellar, [laugh] and he just thought it was a practical joke that they would pretend that was really their laboratory.

10:53 So, what did she win for in 1911, in the—the second Nobel? In a way, it was the same thing. So, in 1911, the prize was for the discovery of radium and polonium, and the isolation of radium, which she had accomplished by herself in 1910. Which, to get at the tiny, you know, it took a ton of ore to get a fraction of a gram of a radium compound, just to get it to radium chloride. To get pure radium was another whole level of dangerous experiments. There was a danger of actually losing the material in the process.

11:35 But she did that, and she was able to observe pure radium. That’s what got her the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry by herself. She didn’t share it with anyone. I see you’ve spent a good amount of time talking about her leadership in creating a radium standard. So, what did that entail? And why was it so important to do that? Well, for any kind of enterprise, manufacturing or in science, you need a standard of comparison, a baseline so that everyone is working from the same models. So, in Paris, there’s the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, and for a long time, there was an actual kilogram that was the basis of all weights all over the world, and an actual meter bar that was the basis of all length measurements.

12:29 So, now they needed a standard of measurement for radioactivity. People were following up this research in Vienna, in England, in America, and each lab had its own standard, so you couldn’t compare the results they had. They were just… floating. If there was one standard, then everybody could say, “Okay, now we know the quantity we have based on this standard.” And from the international standard, there were secondaries made. And again, this is done with the kilogram and the meter. For a long time, every country had its own kilogram that was based on the official one, the international one, in Paris.

13:15 So, the same thing with radioactivity. There were secondaries that were produced for the countries that were entering this new field of science. To simplify it in my way, apples to apples, being able to compare— Yes. —right, right? [laugh] . Exactly. So, you talk about her role, a very important role that Marie and her lab played in pioneering the use of radiation in medical therapies. Can you talk with us a bit about her role in that? Yes. So, early on, she noticed that handling these materials made the skin on her hands peel, and sometimes her fingers would be numb or painful for weeks at a time.

13:57 And Becquerel and Pierre both noticed that if they carried a vial of material in a coat pocket, they’d get a burn on their body from it. So, they published this, and the medical community immediately jumped on it. Well, if it destroys tissue, it could destroy cancerous tumors. And actually the first treatment of breast cancer with radiation took place in their laboratory. A doctor actually brought a couple of women to the lab to see if this would work, and it did. And the spread of it was really not something the Curies pursued.

14:42 They gave the idea to the medical community, but then it was the medical community that developed it. But it’s also what gave her the reputation of a great humanitarian because for decades, radium was the cure for cancer. Right, that legacy we work with here today in Oak Ridge, creating isotopes, medical isotopes, radioactive isotopes, for all kinds of uses, based on that beginning that Marie Curie gave us. Speaking of beginnings, she gave the beginnings to scientific careers to many pretty amazing women you introduced us to. How best would you characterize Marie as a mentor and as a teacher?

15:24 The number of women who passed through her lab, my learning about that is what inspired this book because I hadn’t known the tremendous influence she had, or the large number of women who came to work or study with her. So, she had been an actual teacher. She’d been a governess. She had taught in Paris. She taught at an academy for female teachers. So, she had long experience as a teacher, and applied that in the lab. And also when Pierre died in 1906—and this was most unusual at the time—she was given control of the laboratory they had shared, and his professorship at the Sorbonne.

16:12 So, after they won the Nobel Prize, he got a professorship at the Sorbonne, and she took that over at his death in 1906, and his professorship, so she was actually teaching a university course in physics. There’s no question about her credentials as a teacher. And of course, she was more than willing to train other women because she knew the problems she had had becoming educated as a woman, so she was open to it. I wouldn’t say she sought them out, but she certainly didn’t keep them out. I know, in the interests of time, I want our listeners to go out and, of course, buy the book, but I thought maybe we could just look at a couple of the women you highlight.

16:58 I’m going to mispronounce their names, Dava. So, glad you pronounced my name correctly. That’s very rare. [laugh] . Oh, very good. I love that. See, I’m still a farm boy from Kentucky. So, Ellen Gleditsch, and Marguerite Perey? Is that—or Perey? Perey. Perey. There you go. I was close. So very, very impressive. Can you tell us just a bit about their work with Marie and what they went on to do in their subsequent careers? So, Ellen Gleditsch was only the second woman to arrive at the lab, highly recommended by a colleague in Norway. And in Norway, there was no research yet in radioactivity, but Ellen was very interested in it, and really wanted to pursue that.

17:43 So, Madam Curie gave her the opportunity, and right away, relied on Ellen’s ability as a chemist to take over the production of radium, which the final stages involved a lot of very careful hands-on chemistry. So, Ellen was doing that. And then Madame Curie partnered with her. They did a project together to disprove an important finding by Sir William Ramsey because he was dabbling in radioactivity, also—more than dabbling. And so, they published a paper together, Marie and Ellen.

18:25 And Ellen stayed at the lab for five years and earned her doctoral degree while there, and then back in Norway, she became the first person to teach this new science anywhere in the country. And later she was involved in an international organization called the International Federation of University Women, which existed solely to foster women’s opportunities to get scholarship money for higher education, and to go abroad to do research in a foreign country.

19:07 Very, very impressive. And what about Marguerite? So, Marguerite was the last of the women hired by Marie, just a couple of years before she died, and Marguerite had trained as a lab technician, and she was at the top of her class at the training school for female lab technicians. So, Marie hired her, and then immediately saw how talented she was, and trusted her with important experiments. And they were really trying to gather enough—I forget whether it was actinium or polonium, but it was a very important process that Marguerite had taken over for a particular test when Marie died.

19:57 But she continued at the lab and she was allowed to work on her own, and in the process of pursuing this work—it must have been actinium because she discovered a new element, which she named francium. And then because of those achievements and her demonstrated ability, she was encouraged to go on and get a doctoral degree. She wrote her dissertation about the discovery of francium, and then she moved on to important positions at other universities, and eventually was the first woman admitted to the French Academy of Sciences, something Marie had not achieved.

20:42 Yeah. Just amazing stories. And I think it puts a lot of pressure on everyone writing their dissertation, you know, when someone said, “Well, my dissertation, I discovered an element, by the way.” [laugh] . Imagine that [laugh] . So, Marie made trips to America, tours of America, in 1921 and again in ’29 How was she received here in America? Oh, she was mobbed. People just loved her. They were all over her. In fact, in the first week, people were shaking her hand so enthusiastically she hurt her wrist and had to keep her arm in a sling. And it was overwhelming for her, a person who was quiet by nature.

21:23 And she could not keep up with the schedule of social appearances. And her daughters, both her daughters, were with her on that trip. So sometimes, to an honorary degree ceremony, she would send one of the girls because she just couldn’t take it. I know she met with presidents, and— Yes. —she was all over the—truly amazing story, just of that visit. And she was given these great gifts of riches. The rationale for her first visit was to make a gift to her of a gram of radium from the women of America. And they did it. They raised $100,000 and gave her a gram of radium.

22:04 Let’s talk a bit about another important woman in her life, and that’s her daughter, Irene. And Irene’s husband, Frédéric Joliot—am I saying that correct? Look at—I’m very impressed with myself, now [laugh] . You are great, Alan [laugh] . Now, Irene and Frederick, they won the Nobel Prize in 1935. So, how had Marie and Pierre, did they cultivate Irene for this? Was she prepared, in her youth to become yet another amazing scientist? Well, Pierre died when Irene was a child, but she had certainly observed him and been close to him. And part of Marie’s grief at his death was—and she wrote about this in a journal she kept for a year after his death—how she saw in Irene the same personality that Pierre had, that same ability to get to the heart of some question, and be willing to investigate things hands-on.

23:04 And when Irene was about 12, Marie actually created a little co-op school because Pierre had never been able to sit still in school, and they didn’t think the daughter could either. So, Marie got together with some of her colleagues at the Sorbonne, and they had this group of about a dozen kids who would just go from university class—they learned physics in Madam Curie’s lab, and they had art lessons at the Louvre from a real artist. This went on for about two years. And then during World War I, when the daughter was 17, Marie just drafted her to come along and do the vital work.

23:49 She pioneered in X-raying wounded soldiers. Irene had all of that in her growing up, and then she began working in the lab, and getting her—even during World War I, while she was being a nurse and an X-ray technician, she was earning her undergraduate degree, and then went on and did her graduate degree in the lab, studying polonium, one of her parents’ discoveries. And then she married her lab partner, or the young man who had been assigned to her so he could learn about radioactivity—that was Frederick—and they seemed utterly mismatched.

24:32 He was a very outgoing, handsome, eligible bachelor, and she was this tall, very taciturn, quiet woman with seemingly no social graces. They had another really wonderful marriage, were totally devoted to each other, had two children who are still living and are also scientists. They’re both in their 90s. Wow. So, what did they win their Nobel for? They won it in, what, ’35. What was their Nobel [unintelligible] ? Well, very fittingly, you mentioned radio isotopes. So, their discovery was that certain ordinary elements could be made radioactive briefly, but then they would lose their radioactivity without going through a long chain of other radioactive daughter products.

25:25 They were safer to use, and they could be artificially created in the lab. You didn’t have to go through a ton of ore to make these things. So, it was revolutionary, and it what led to the whole change in the way cancer was treated with radioactivity. And then you could use these radio isotopes to tag components in experiments, so follow a certain cell, or whatever it might be, through a series of experiments and be able to identify it by the radio isotope tag. If I remember correctly, photosynthesis, that process, that was a big role in understanding better photosynthesis, for example.

26:11 So, I wondered, did Irene play a role similar to Marie in advancing women scientists in her lab? Yes, in the same way. And she was a little more outspoken in—so she actually tried to get elected to the French Academy of Sciences several times as a way to demonstrate how ridiculous it was that they were still barring women in the 1940s and ’50s, especially a woman who had won a Nobel Prize. But she didn’t get in either [laugh] . I was shocked by that. Absolutely shocked. So, how would you compare Marie and Irene? Were they similar personalities?

26:52 I know, obviously brilliant. Yeah. Obviously brilliant, obviously ready to meet any challenge. I think Irene was perhaps a little more comfortable on the world stage than Marie, but they certainly shared interests and a complete devotion to research. You mentioned Marie’s journals earlier. I was just curious, are those easily accessible? Are they been published? How do you access those journals? Because she’s Madam Curie, everything has been digitized. So, you can read her handwritten grief journal online. It’s held in the archives of the French National Library.

27:35 And that was so helpful to me because I wrote this book during the pandemic, and I couldn’t go to Paris. So, I was worried at first, how would I do anything? But I was mightily impressed by that website, and also all of the weekly publications of the Academy of Sciences. You can read those online back a few centuries. Thank goodness for that world during the pandemic. You know, I don’t know what we would have done [laugh] , and we certainly learned here at AMSE how to do things like podcast during that to get the word out and to help continue our education mission, and you’ve been a big part of that now twice, Dava.

28:23 What’s next for you? Well, I’m still in the postpartum phase with Madam Curie. I can’t get right on a new project. But I do have thoughts on a—I’m looking for other stories about women in science because I’m now focused on that, having been sensitized to its importance as an issue even now, especially now. But I also edit a column in Scientific American about poetry about science. I commission poems or get through the welter of submissions, which are many, and a poem about science appears in every issue.

29:08 That’s terrific. Wow. You’re a busy person, Dava, and I appreciate you making time to join us in AMSEcast. I really enjoyed it as always. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on this episode of AMSEcast. For more information on this topic or any others, you can always visit us at AMSE.org or find, like, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I invite you to visit the American Museum of Science and Energy and the K-25 History Center in person. You can also shop at our online store and become a member at AMSE.org. Thanks to our production team with Matt Mullins, plus our supportive colleagues at the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, Office of Environmental Management, and Office of Legacy Management, as well as Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Y-12 National Security Complex, NNSA, and the AMSE Foundation.

30:04 And of course, thanks to our wonderful guests today, and to all of you for listening. I hope you’ll join us for the next episode of AMSEcast. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, I would like to ask that you consider becoming a member of the 117 Society, the newest membership opportunity offered by the American Museum of Science and Energy Foundation. By joining the 117 Society, you will help us continue this podcast and our other innovative programming. You will support the expansion of our vitally important educational outreach, including virtual classes, and you will help ensure that both the American Museum of Science and Energy and the K-25 History Center can continue to provide world-class exhibits to our community and to the world.

30:48 Benefits of membership includes special access to video and audio content, and 117 Society merchandise, as well as all the benefits of our Atom Splitter Membership Level. To learn more, go to AMSE.org. The 117 Society is vital to the future of AMSE and the K-25 History Center. I hope you will consider joining, and thank you very much.