Sep 8

Marie Curie’s work, along with her husband Pierre Curie, contributed substantially to shaping the world of the 20th and 21st centuries, in both physics and the greater society. As L. Pearce Williams writes:

“The result of the Curies’ work was epoch-making. Radium’s radioactivity was so great that it could not be ignored. It seemed to contradict the principle of the conservation of energy and therefore forced a reconsideration of the foundations of physics. On the experimental level the discovery of radium provided men like Enest Rutherford with sources of radioactivity with which they could probe the structure of the atom. As a result of Rutherford’s experiments with alpha radiation, the nuclear atom was first postulated. In medicine, the radioactivity of radium appeared to offer a means by which cancer could be successfully attacked.

While the work of Marie Curie’s initial result was to disrupt and overturn many of the long established theories of physics and chemistry, the truly profound effect, for many, was in the societal sphere. She overcame constant barriers by virtue of being a woman, and attained her scientific achievements in spite of them. In fact, she could be viewed as a feminist precursor. She was obviously ahead of her time, independent, emancipated, and uncorrupted by her fame. Albert Einstein is reputed to have remarked that she may have been the only person he knew who was not corrupted by the fame that she had received.