The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science

by Dava Sobel

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Few people have left as profound an impact on the world of science as Marie Curie, and she did it in two different fields. This history examines her life from top to bottom, both in terms of her contributions to modern science, and in terms of who she was as a person.

The acclaimed Pulitzer Prize finalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Galileo’s Daughter crafts a luminous chronicle of the life and work of the most famous woman in the history of science, and the untold story of the many young women trained in her laboratory who were launched into stellar scientific careers of their own

“Even now, nearly a century after her death, Marie Curie remains the only female scientist most people can name,” writes Dava Sobel at the opening of her shining portrait of the sole Nobel laureate decorated in two separate fields of science—Physics in 1903 with her husband Pierre and Chemistry by herself in 1911. And yet, Sobel makes clear, as brilliant and creative as she was in the laboratory, Marie Curie was equally passionate outside it. Grieving Pierre’s untimely death in 1906, she took his place as professor of physics at the Sorbonne; devotedly raised two brilliant daughters; drove a van she outfitted with x-ray equipment to the front lines of World War I; befriended Albert Einstein and other luminaries of twentieth-century physics; won support from two U.S. presidents; and inspired generations of young women the world over to pursue science as a way of life.

As Sobel did so memorably in her portrait of Galileo through the prism of his daughter, she approaches Marie Curie from a unique angle, narrating her remarkable life of discovery and fame alongside the women who became her legacy—from France’s Marguerite Perey, who discovered the element francium, and Norway’s Ellen Gleditsch, to Mme. Curie’s elder daughter, Irène, winner of the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. For decades the only woman in the room at international scientific gatherings that probed new theories about the interior of the atom, Marie Curie traveled far and wide, despite constant illness, to share the secrets of radioactivity, a term she coined. Her two triumphant tours of the United States won her admirers for her modesty even as she was mobbed at every stop; her daughters, in Ève’s later recollection, “discovered all at once what the retiring woman with whom they had always lived meant to the world.”

With the consummate skill that made bestsellers of Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter, and the appreciation for women in science at the heart of her most recent The Glass Universe, Dava Sobel has crafted a radiant biography and a masterpiece of storytelling, illuminating the life and enduring influence of one of the most consequential figures of our time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802163820
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	10/08/2024
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	3,911
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Dava Sobel is the author of the international bestseller Longitude, the bestselling Pulitzer Prize finalist Galileo’s Daughter, The Planets, A More Perfect Heaven, And the Sun Stood Still, and The Glass Universe, and co-author of The Illustrated Longitude. She is the recipient of the Individual Public Service Award from the National Science Board, the Bradford Washburn Award, the Kumpke-Roberts Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. A former New York Times science reporter, and currently editor of the “Meter” poetry column in Scientific American, she lives on Long Island.

Editorial Reviews

08/12/2024

This disappointing history from science writer Sobel (The Glass Universe) comes up short in examining how Marie Curie (1867–1934) kick-started dozens of women scientists’ careers at her University of Paris laboratory. After her husband’s death in 1906, Curie replaced him as laboratory director and began hiring women assistants. Her protégés included Ellen Gleditsch, who determined the half-life of radium, and Marguerite Perey, who discovered the element francium. Unfortunately, Sobel doesn’t provide much discussion of Curie’s working relationships with her assistants, making each scientist’s biographical chapter feel curiously siloed from the others. This is likely because, as Sobel notes, a “vaguely diagnosed kidney ailment” brought on by prolonged radiation exposure kept Curie out of the lab for long stretches of time (several would-be protégés quit over the years, “frustrated by the lack of contact with Mme. Curie”). Sobel highlights the enraging sexism women scientists had to endure (Harriet Brooks worked in Curie’s lab around 1906 while taking a break from her teaching duties at Barnard College, which had forced her to break off her engagement because the dean believed a married woman couldn’t adequately serve both her students and her husband), but Curie’s role in the women’s lives remains largely opaque. This feels like a missed opportunity. Photos. Agent: Michael Carlisle, InkWell Management. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Elements of Marie Curie:

“Ms. Sobel takes the familiar story of Marie Curie and crosscuts it. The journey of the Polish-French physicist who helped unlock the secrets of radioactivity was never straightforward, but it was also never taken alone. Woven into the account of Curie’s life are the lives of other women . . . What sets Ms. Sobel’s biography apart isn’t the timeline or the events of her subject’s life; it’s those women of science whose lives intersected with Curie’s, a cast of brilliant researchers and thinkers that the author skillfully weaves into her narrative.”—Brandy Schillace, Wall Street Journal

“A fresh portrait of the icon and two-time Nobel laureate . . . Well-researched and compellingly written . . . The Elements of Marie Curie beautifully illuminates the science and the scientists that Curie devoted her life to developing . . . Sobel gives us a chance to share in the excitement and delight of the work that made Curie and her dozens of scientific offspring glow so brightly.”—Michelle Francl, Nature

“Sobel writes elegantly about science, unspooling Curie’s pursuits in the lab like a mystery.”—Kate Zernike, New York Times Book Review

“[Sobel] brings a new perspective, one that rhymes with contemporary understandings about how scientific discoveries are made . . . Introduces us to the legion of people, many of them women, who worked alongside Curie throughout her career, supporting, expanding and translating her work so that its significance and reputation was carried round the world.”—Kathryn Hughes, The Times (UK)

“A vivid narrative that uses Curie’s well-known story as scaffolding for tales of the brilliant young women who trained in her lab and became part of her scientific legacy . . . This superbly rendered portrait of Curie and her intellectual offspring could inspire many bright minds to follow in the scientist’s footsteps for generations to come.”—Vijaysree Venkatraman, Science

“Paints a human portrait not of an isolated genius, but of a woman who existed in and built scientific community . . . Sobel analyzes her subject with care and thorough detailed historical and personal accounts . . . An essential read for anyone who values works that highlight women in the sciences.”—Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“Preeminent science writer Sobel brings forward a new array of female scientists in this vital portrait of Marie Curie and the women who joined her in her world-altering Paris laboratory . . . As Sobel vividly tells their tales of valor, diligence, and brilliance, she fuses elements human and scientific to create a dramatic group portrait encompassing passion, struggle, poignancy, and triumph.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Admiring biography, by the noted popular historian of science, of the extraordinarily accomplished Madame Curie . . . A lucid, literate biography, celebrating a scientific exemplar who, for all her fame, deserves to be better known.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Paints a human portrait not of an isolated genius, but of a woman who existed in and built scientific community . . . Sobel analyzes her subject with care and through detailed historical and personal accounts . . . An essential read for anyone who values works that highlight women in the sciences.”—Shelf Awareness

“Marie Curie is one of the greatest scientists of all time and a pioneer for women. In this book Dava Sobel has brought her and those she inspired to life, with her characteristic accessible and scholarly writing. A book for our times celebrating both science and women.”—Paul Nurse, author of What Is Life?

“Marie Skłodowska Curie was unique, but her influence irradiated the futures of 45 women who worked in her laboratory. By restoring these pioneers to visibility, acclaimed historian Dava Sobel casts fresh light on the life and achievements of the first scientist to win two Nobel prizes.”—Dr. Patricia Fara, author of Science: A Four Thousand Year History

“Hard to put down! A wonderfully written biography of Marie Curie, that does not step away from the physics but also includes her life outside the lab, even including the black and white cat!”—Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Praise for Dava Sobel:

“Sobel is a master storyteller . . . What she has done, with her choice of excerpts and her strong sense of story, is bring a great scientist to life.”—New York Times, on Galileo’s Daughter

“[Sobel] shows herself a virtuoso at encapsulating the history and the politics of science. Her descriptions of Galileo's ideas... are pithy, vivid, and intelligible.”—Wall Street Journal, on Galileo’s Daughter

“Sobel does wonders clearly explaining scientific principles... [She] is a most original writer, with a reverence for history and storytelling.”—USA Today, on Galileo’s Daughter

“A gem of a book.”—New York Times, on Longitude

“A simple tale, brilliantly told.”—Washington Post Book World, on Longitude

“As much a tale of intrigue as it is of science . . . A book full of gems for anyone interested in history, geography, astronomy, navigation, clockmaking, and—not the least—plain old human ambition and greed.”—Philadelphia Inquirer, on Longitude 

“Ms. Sobel writes with an eye for a telling detail and an ear for an elegant turn of phrase . . . A joy to read.”—Wall Street Journal, on The Glass Universe

“Sobel lucidly captures the intricate, interdependent constellation of people it took to unlock mysteries of the stars . . . The Glass Universe positively glows.”—NPR

“An elegant historical tale…[from] the master storyteller of astronomy.”—Boston Globe, on The Glass Universe

“Sobel mixes discussions of the most abstruse topics with telling glimpses of her subjects’ lives, in the process showing how scientific and social progress often go hand in hand.”—New Yorker, on The Glass Universe

“A peerless intellectual biography. The Glass Universe shines and twinkles as brightly as the stars themselves.”—The Economist

“Playful . . . Lyrical . . . A guided tour so imaginative that we forget we’re being educated as we’re being entertained.”—Newsweek, on The Planets

“[The Planets] lets us fall in love with the heavens all over again.”—New York Times Book Review

“[Sobel] has outdone her extraordinary talent for keeping readers enthralled . . . A splendid and enticing book.”—San Francisco Chronicle, on The Planets

From the Publisher

2024-09-14
Admiring biography, by the noted popular historian of science, of the extraordinarily accomplished Madame Curie.

As of now, notes Sobel in her opening pages, Marie Curie, née Marya Salomea Slodowska, is “the only Nobel laureate ever decorated in two separate fields of science.” Sobel points to Curie’s brilliance across a range of disciplines, encouraged by her progressive father, a math teacher at a Warsaw high school, who encouraged all his children to enjoy the sciences but also read Dickens aloud to them in English, “translating the text into Polish on the fly.” Fortunately, at least some of the French scientific establishment was just as progressive, with the Sorbonne admitting women into medical school, and there Marya, now Marie, went, changing her study track to physics. That was a hard slog; as Sobel writes, she still had some catch-up work to do in math, and in French, a language not her own. Still, in 1893, two years after arriving in Paris, she came in first in her class and began studying for a doctorate, her topic the relatively unexciting “magnetic properties of dozens of varieties of steel.” Enter Pierre Curie, with whom Marie would have a binding love until his unfortunate death; modest to a fault, he made sure to credit her for her work, even if international organizations too often did not. Indeed, Sobel makes plain that Marie was Pierre’s equal and more, making critically important discoveries at the dawn of our understanding ofradioactivity—a term that Marie coined. Moreover, Sobel notes, though known as a martyr of science, dying of radiation poisoning in the form of aplastic anemia, Marie Curie should just as properly be recognized for helping dozens of women advance in the sciences.

A lucid, literate biography, celebrating a scientific exemplar who, for all her fame, deserves to be better known.

Kirkus Reviews