Why don’t we celebrate Marie Curie? Tech calling Hollywood.
The photo on the left was taken in Belgium in 1927 at the “by invitation-only” Solvay Conference for Physics and Chemistry. The woman in that photo is Marie Curie, the only person (male or female) ever to have won the Nobel Prize in two Sciences (for Physics in 1903 and for Chemistry in 1911). The photo on the right was taken two generations later in India. The woman in that photo is me. In that photo, with me are my classmates from a technical course that I took. What is the connection between the two photos? The woman in the photo on the left inspired the woman in the photo on the right .
I was 14 years old when I first learned about Marie Curie. One of the assignments in Grade 10 English was to read her biography. Her story, of growing up in Poland, working as a governess, studying at the Sorbonne, meeting Pierre Curie, discovering Polonium and Radium and winning the two Nobel Prizes, fascinated me. The fact that someone managed to innovate in two Science domains was unfathomable. That someone happened to be a woman made it awe-inspiring. I read her biography over and over. It is unequivocally the most times I’ve read any text book. I do not recall learning the story of other women in the field of Science. All it took to inspire me was one. That one was Marie Curie. She “normalized” Physics and Chemistry for me. If she could “do it” (learn…
