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Marie Curie in JCE Resources and Modern Media Mary E. Saecker* Journal of Chemical Education, Madison, Wisconsin 53711, United States ABSTRACT: To celebrate the achievements of Marie Curie in 2011, the centennial year of her Nobel Prize in Chemistry, resources from past issues of the Journal of Chemical Education and from current works informed by her life are discussed. KEYWORDS: General Public, History/Philosophy, Nuclear/Radiochemistry, Women in Chemistry
O
ne of the key goals of the International Year of Chemistry 2011 (ICY 2011) is the celebration of the achievements of Marie Curie and the contributions of women to chemistry. This year marks the centennial of Marie Curie’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Journal of Chemical Education, while not yet 100, contains interesting resource material about Marie Curie, some written on the occasion of her second visit to the United States in October of 1929. Highlighted below are a number of JCE and other resources to add a dimension to the appreciation of the science and humanity of this remarkable scientist.
and directness that characterize all her public utterances, rose from a full heart, for it is probable that the one regret which this distinguished woman attaches to the years she has given to science centers on the difficulties imposed upon her work by the lack of adequate facilities in the early period of her researches. These hindrances postponed her various discoveries by months, and in the aggregate by years, but the fact that such obstacles present no permanent barrier to the zealous investigator can never be more perfectly demonstrated than in the career of Madame Curie.
’ MARIE CURIE RESOURCES IN PAST ISSUES OF THE JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
Madame Curie Dedicates Hepburn Hall of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University
Editor’s Outlook: Marie Sklodowska Curie
Warner, Verner J. J. Chem. Educ. 1930, 7, 268 276; DOI: 10.1021/ed007p268. This account2 of the dedication of Hepburn Hall of Chemistry3 at St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY on October 26, 1929 by Marie Curie gives a sense of history as it was happening and includes many interesting photographs (for example, see Figure 1). Prior to the dedication ceremony, she received the honorary degree of Doctor of Science. The article includes transcripts of various speeches given at the dedication, including an address delivered by George Pegram, professor of physics at Columbia University, who emphasized2
Gordon, Neil E. J. Chem. Educ. 1930, 7, 225 227; DOI: 10.1021/ed007p225. This brief biographical sketch of Madame Curie1 was written by the first editor of JCE, Neil Gordon, with assistance from L. Razet, secretary of the Radium Institute, Paris, and published when Curie was still alive. The opening paragraph emphasizes how her achievements were all the more incredible for the many obstacles that she had to overcome, particularly with regard to scientific resources1 (p 225): When Madame Curie addressed the assembly at St. Lawrence on the opening of Hepburn Hall (see THIS JOURNAL, p. 268)[ref 2] doubtless her words, clothed in the brevity Copyright r 2011 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
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This paper4 is a critical account for the most significant body of Marie Skzodowska Curie’s scientific work, her doctoral thesis, while offering some new insights into her methods and results. The author’s goal is that Curie be remembered for “the ‘right’ reasons”4 (p 561): Marie Curie’s doctoral thesis contains the entire kernel of her most important work, embodying in a single document an area of research that had otherwise been described only piecemeal, if at all, in journal articles. This thesis is the rare result of a central scientific figure’s taking time out from her research to create a snapshot of a rapidly changing field at a crucial moment in history. Additional JCE resources related to Marie Curie’s life include an appreciation of Pierre Currie’s scientific achievements5 and a narrative of the Curie Becquerel story.6
Figure 1. Enroute to exercises. Left: President R. E. Sykes; Center: Madame Curie; Right: Owen D. Young. (Reproduced from ref 2).
’ CONTEMPORARY RESOURCES INSPIRED BY MARIE CURIE Marie Curie’s passions and her life story have inspired numerous works over the years, including biographies in print,7 in movies,8 and on television.9 Several recently inspired works are described below. Visual Art
The video and new media artist Jennifer Steinkamp10 has created an artistic installation entitled Madame Curie at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. It was inspired by the artist’s research into atomic energy, atomic explosions, and the effects of these forces on nature coupled with Marie Curie’s passion for flowers and love of gardening. Curie’s love of flowers is detailed in the Eve Curie’s biography of her mother,7 and this site-specific video animation shows realistic flora mentioned by Eve Curie, including apple blossoms, rambler roses, and wisteria.
“Marie Curie, the discover” (p 268) and “her clear-seeing, simplifying insight of scientific genius” (p 272). The dedication ends with brief remarks by Marie Curie (“the most distinguished scientist in the world today”,2 p 276), spoken in English2 (p 276): I dedicate this laboratory to scientific research in the field of chemistry. It is a pleasure as well as an honor for me to have been asked to come to St. Lawrence University on this occasion. I appreciate highly this new important development of the University, and fully realize the need of it at a time when physics and chemistry are in constant and amazingly rapid progress. It gives confidence in the future of your University to know that as soon as the need has been made clear the new laboratory has been erected by the devotion of those who have been educated here. I am in sympathy with the feeling that, having received high education, one should have the desire to extend the same privilege to others. I also believe that pure scientific research is the true source of progress and civilization and that by creation of new centers the number of men and women who are able to devote themselves to science shall be increased. For all these reasons I congratulate St. Lawrence University on the opening of the new laboratory and I congratulate Mrs. Hepburn and Mr. Young for their part in this creation.
Dramatic Art
Holly Walter Kerby teaches chemistry and playwriting at Madison Area Technical College in Madison, Wisconsin. Her informal science education shows use theater, inquiry, and participatory techniques to catalyze science learning in children 4 through 14 years.11 Radiant Source12 is a play written by Kerby that brings to life Marie Curie as wife, mother, and scientist by integrating Curie’s scientific work with scenes of her marriage and family life. In addition, a one-woman drama dealing with the struggles and triumphs of Marie Curie has been brought to life by Susan Marie Frontczak.13 Science Journalism
Deborah Blum is a Pulitzer Prize-winning professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin Madison and a science writer. She also contributes the blog “Speakeasy Science” to the Public Library of Science: Science Blog Network (PLoS Blogs).14 Her fifth and most recent book, The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York,15 tells the fascinating story of New York City’s first chief medical examiner, Charles Norris, and his toxicologist, Alexander Gettler. Each chapter is dedicated to a particular poison and time period as Blum mixes forensic toxicology, history, and true crime. The eighth chapter is devoted to radium during 1928 1929 at a time when its dangers were not fully understood. Blum’s account of the young “Radium Girls” who painted luminous watch faces during the 1920s is “a cautionary tale of radioactive elements, a
The article ends with a poem composed “To Madame Curie”2 (p 276) and read by Charles Kelsey Gaines, then professor of English literature at St. Lawrence, which concludes: Let all the ghosts of alchemy bow down, While on this woman’s brow we set the crown. Marie Curie’s Doctoral Thesis: Prelude to a Nobel Prize
Wolke, Robert L. J. Chem. Educ. 1988, 65, p 561 573; DOI: 10.1021/ed065p561. 691
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slow recognition of their danger, and the risks of scientific overconfidence”.16 The time period detailed coincides with Marie Curie’s second trip to the United States and Blum draws the parallel between her frailty during her visit, and eventual death in 1934 from exposure to radioactive elements, and the fate of the Radium Girls.
(16) Blum, D. Speakeasy Science. http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/. Recent posts about radium: http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/2011/03/24/the-radium-girls/; http://blogs.plos.org/ speakeasyscience/2011/03/25/life-in-the-undark/; http://blogs.plos.org/ speakeasyscience/2011/03/26/a-dazzle-in-the-bones/ (all sites accessed Apr 2011). (17) International Year of Chemistry 2011. http://www.chemistry2011.org (accessed Apr 2011). (18) IUPAC’s Chemistry International Publication of Marie Skzodowska Curie: A Special Issue Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Her Nobel Prize in Chemistry. http://www.iupac.org/ publications/ci/2011/real_pages/Jan11CI/index.html (accessed Apr 2011) . (19) Quinn, S. International Year of Chemistry 2011: A Test of Courage: Marie Curie and the 1911 Nobel Prize. Clin. Chem., 2011, 57, 653 658.
IYC 2011 Marie Curie Resources
The IYC 2011 Web site17 contains up-to-date information on worldwide Marie Curie-related events, homages, and resources. Resources detailed at the site include information about a Marie Curie issue of Chemistry International,18 a news magazine of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, and an article on honoring the life of Marie Curie in the April 2011 issue of Clinical Chemistry.19
’ AUTHOR INFORMATION Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected].
’ REFERENCES (1) Gordon, N. E. Editor’s Outlook: Marie Sklodowska Curie. J. Chem. Educ. 1930, 7, 225 227; DOI: 10.1021/ed007p225. (2) Warner, V. J. Madame Curie Dedicates Hepburn Hall of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University. J. Chem. Educ. 1930, 7, 268 276; DOI: 10.1021/ed007p268. (3) Hepburn Hall at St. Lawrence University currently houses the government and economics departments. See http://www.stlawu.edu/ map/hepburn.html (accessed Apr 2011). (4) Wolke, R. L. Marie Curie’s Doctoral Thesis: Prelude to a Nobel Prize. J. Chem. Educ. 1988, 65, 561 573; DOI: 10.1021/ed065p561. (5) Klickstein, H. S. Pierre Curie—An Appreciation of His Scientific Achievements. J. Chem. Educ. 1947, 24, 278 282; DOI: 10.1021/ ed024p278. (6) Walton, H. F. The Curie Becquerel Story. J. Chem. Educ. 1992, 69, 10 15; DOI: 10.1021/ed069p10. (7) Curie, E. Madame Curie: A Biography; Da Capo Press: New York, 2001 (Doubleday & Co.: New York, 1937). Quinn, S. Marie Curie: A Life; Perseus Books: Cambridge, MA, 1995. Goldsmith, B. Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie; W. W. Norton & Co.: New York, 2005. Redniss, L. Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie—A Tale of Love and Fallout; HarperCollins: New York, 2010 (reviewed in this issue: see DOI: 10.1021/ed200179p). (8) Madame Curie. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. 1943; Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios: Culver City, CA. Les Palmes de M. Schutz (In the USA: Pierre and Marie). Directed by Claude Pinoteau. 1997; France. (9) The Six Experiments That Changed the World: Marie Curie’s Radium. Directed by Bethan Corney and Michael Duxbury; available at http://www.youtube.com/(accessed Apr 2011). (10) Steinkamp, J. Jennifer Steinkamp Artist Web Site. http:// jsteinkamp.com/. Details about the Madame Curie installation are available at http://jsteinkamp.com/html/madame_curie.htm, including a Quicktime video at http://jsteinkamp.com/quicktime/html/madame_ curie.html (all sites accessed Apr 2011). (11) Kerby, H. W.; Cantor, J.; Weiland, M.; Babiarz, C.; Kerby, A. W. J. Chem. Educ. 2010, 87, 1024 1030; DOI: 10.1021/ed100143j. (12) Kerby, H. W. Radiant Source. http://faculty.matcmadison.edu/ hkerby/radiant_source.htm (accessed Apr 2011). (13) Frontczak, S. M. Storysmith—Manya: Marie Curie Living History. http://www.storysmith.org/manya/ (accessed Apr 2011). (14) Public Library of Science Blog Network. http://blogs.plos.org/ (accessed Apr 2011). (15) Blum, D. The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York; Penguin Press: New York, 2010. 692
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