P.rhyme woman to receive a Nobel prize. Only woman to receive it two in different fields. First woman a graduating in Science at the Sorbonne, in Paris. First woman to have the PhD in Science in France. With his life, Marie Curie has in fact marked the global history of women. He indicated some path and intention. But at the same time she was one of the most fought by public opinion and the press, due to his falling in love – after four years of widowhood – against a married man, Paul Langevin. And because of the freedom he claimed, against everything and everyone.
Marie Curie (1867-1934). Credit: Hulton Archive / Getty Images
Marie Curie: the woman of primates
Tracing the story of Marie Curie is very important to remind us how much we owe to some figures who, in the past, have fought for a fair and free society. Without discrimination of any kind.
The professional history of French naturalized Polish physics and chemistry is well known. In 1903 she was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize for physics (she shared it with her husband Pierre Curie and with Antoine Henri Becquerel) for the radiation studies. Eight years later it became the only woman to do an encorewith a prize Nobel (this time for chemistry) for his discovery of the radio he was born in polonium. The name of this chemical element, among other things, was chosen precisely to pay homage to the country of origin of the scholar.
Precisely because in Russian Poland, however, it was not possible for women to access higher education, Maria Skłodowska (this is his real name) he moved to France, to Paris. He graduated in physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne (there were 23 women out of 1825 students) and to leave from 1987 he began to focus on radioactive substances. The same ones that led to her death in 1934, at the age of sixty-six, from aplastic anemia. Indeed, her physique had been exposed to dangerous radiation for a long time. Marie Curie was the first (and only) woman to be buried in the Pantheon of Illustrious Men.
At the Sorbonne Marie Curie became the first woman with a professorship (in general physics). She came to this result two years after she became a widow. In fact, her husband Pierre died in 1906 when he was hit by a carriage at the age of forty-seven. “I lost my beloved Pierre, and with him all hope and all support for the rest of my life,” she said.
The love story between Marie Curie and Paul Langevin
And right here it is one of the major injustices of the French press and public opinion. When the scholar, widowed for four years now, began to show an interest in a married man – the French physicist Paul Langevin – was immediately pointed out as a family ruin. Like an outcast. A Polish Jewish woman who arrived in France with the aim of ruining the family life of Dr. Langevin, a teacher admired by Einstein and, among other things, a devotee of Pierre Curie.
As these accusations became heavy, no one cared about the scholar’s commitment to physics or chemistry. Nobody cared about the woman’s dedication, that she spent hours and hours studying what would later become the basis of future chemical and physical studies. The important thing was, however, to define her as an embarrassing figure, to be ashamed of. And to be condemned loudly.
And this completely misogynistic and anti-Semitic attitude also crossed national borders. Not by chance the organizers of the Nobel Prize – after having awarded her the second recognition – they asked her not to go and pick it up. How to enhance the thesis according to which she would not be worthy of this honor, as she is guilty of falling in love with a married man. Especially after the newspapers published an exchange of private letters between her and Paul Langevin. They said “if the Academy had thought that those letters could be authentic, it is very likely that they would not have awarded her the prize“.
Among other things, many in France claimed that had not achieved great results after the death of her husbandas if she were a mere assistant to a more competent scholar than she.
“There is nothing about my actions that forces me to feel diminished”
When the wife of French physicist Paul Langevin found out about the story between him and Marie Curie, he threatened her with death. And he asked her to leave France. The scandal spread everywhere. The newspapers wrote about it. And public opinion was all against Marie Curie, a woman considered to be the only one guilty of an outrageous fact. It matters little if her lover preferred her to her wife, with whom he felt trapped in a suffocating relationship (then, however, he promised his wife that he would never meet Marie again). The fault was all of Marie Curie, austere woman and very little used to smiles and divertissement who, however, had decided (mistakenly, according to all) to give himself a second chance.
Also in this case, Marie Curie took the right to live in her present. He hinted that his private life should remain that way. In a statement he sent to The Temps, he called “the intrusions of the press and the public into my private life abominable.” And he added a point that, thinking about the time, demonstrates an incredible sensitivity. “There is nothing in my actions that forces me to feel diminished. I will not add anything else ».
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