Renowned physicist Pierre Curie (1859 - 1906) shared more than a house and

bed with his wife Marie: in 1903 they shared the Nobel Prize. Born in Poland,
Marie Sklodovska was not only young and charming, but also Pierre's intellectual
equal. The following letter contains one of his many marriage proposals, which
she initially refused. Eventually, however, he won her heart and they were
married in 1895.

August 10, 1894

Nothing could have given me greater pleasure that to get news of you. The
prospect of remaining two months without hearing about you had been
extremely disagreeable to me: that is to say, your little note was more than
welcome.

I hope you are laying up a stock of good air and that you will come back to us in
October. As for me, I think I shall not go anywhere; I shall stay in the country,
where I spend the whole day in front of my open window or in the garden.

We have promised each other -- haven't we? -- to be at least great friends. If you
will only not change your mind! For there are no promises that are binding; such
things cannot be ordered at will. It would be a fine thing, just the same, in which I
hardly dare believe, to pass our lives near each other, hypnotized by our dreams:
your patriotic dream, our humanitarian dream, and our scientific dream.

Of all those dreams the last is, I believe, the only legitimate one. I mean by that
that we are powerless to change the social order and, even if we were not, we
should not know what to do; in taking action, no matter in what direction, we
should never be sure of not doing more harm than good, by retarding some
inevitable evolution. From the scientific point of view, on the contrary, we may
hope to do something; the ground is solider here, and any discovery that we may
make, however small, will remain acquired knowledge.

See how it works out: it is agreed that we shall be great friends, but if you leave
France in a year it would be an altogether too Platonic friendship, that of two
creatures who would never see each other again. Wouldn't it be better for you to
stay with me? I know that this question angers you, and that you don't want to
speak of it again -- and then, too, I feel so thoroughly unworthy of you from every
point of view.

I thought of asking your permission to meet you by chance in Fribourg. But you
are staying there, unless I am mistaken, only one day, and on that day you will of
course belong to our friends the Kovalskis.

Believe me your very devoted

Peirre Curie

I met Pierre Curie for the first time in the spring of the year 1894.... A Polish
physicist whom I knew, and who was a great admirer of Pierre Curie, one day
invited us together to spend the evening with himself and his wife.

As I entered the room, Pierre Curie was standing in the recess of a French window
opening on a balcony. He seemed to me very young, though he was at that time
thirty-five years old. I was struck by the open expression of his face and by the
slight suggestion of detachment in his whole attitude. His speech, rather slow
and deliberate, his simplicity, and his smile, at once grave and youthful, inspired
confidence. We began a conversation which soon became friendly. It first
concerned certain scientific matters about which I was very glad to be able to
ask his opinion. Then we discussed certain social and humanitarian subjects
which interested us both. There was, between his conceptions and mine, despite
the difference between our native countries, a surprising kinship, no doubt
attributable to a certain likeness in the moral atmosphere in which we were both
raised by our families.

We met again at the Physics Society and in the laboratory. Then he asked if he
might call upon me.... Pierre Curie came to see me, and showed a simple and
sincere sympathy with my student life. Soon he caught the habit of speaking to
me of his dream of an existence consecrated entirely to scientific research, and
he asked me to share that life. It was not, however, easy for me to make such a
decision, for it meant separation from my country and my family, and the
renouncement of certain social projects that were dear to me. Having grown up
in an atmosphere of patriotism kept alive by the oppression of Poland, I wished,
like many other young people of my country, to contribute my effort toward the
conservation of our national spirit....

During the year 1894 Pierre Curie wrote me letters that seem to me admirable in
their form. No one of them was very long, for he had the habit of concise
expression, but all were written in a spirit of sincerity and with an evident anxiety

to make the one he desired as a companion know him as he was.... It is

appropriate to quote here a few lines which express how he looked on the
possibility of our marriage:

We have promised each other (is it not true?) to have, the one for the other, at
least a great affection. Provided that you do not change your mind! For there are
no promises which hold; these are things that do not admit of compulsion.

It would, nevertheless, be a beautiful thing in which I hardly dare believe, to

pass through life together hypnotized in our dreams: your dream for your
country; our dream for humanity; our dream for science. Of all these dreams, I
believe the last, alone, is legitimate. I mean to say by this that we are powerless
to change the social order. Even if this were not true we should not know what to
do.... From the point of view of science, on the contrary, we can pretend to
accomplish something. The territory here is more solid and obvious, and however
small it is, it is truly in our possession.

One can understand, from this letter, that for Pierre Curie there was only one way
of looking at the future. He had dedicated his life to his dream of science: he felt
the need of a companion who could live his dream with
him"
I Love A Good Love Story
Marie And Pierre Curie "Let me not unto the marriage of true minds admit
impediment." William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116.

Marie and Pierre were two geniuses destined for each other. He was French, born
into an academic and medical family who recognised his genius early and had
the good sense not to send him to school where they felt his spirit would be
squashed. She came from a poor Polish family in a time of Russian occupation.
Her life was one of great struggle to make ends meet, especially after her mother
died when she was just 9 years old.

Marie was brilliant, but potential academic achievement was to take the back
burner while she helped to support the family, working as a governess. All the
children were brilliant and Marie vowed to use her earnings to fund higher
education for her older sister. And so she put off her own ambitions to see her
sister on her feet. As circumstances improved, the time finally came for Marie to
have a turn and she enrolled at the Sorbonne, the most academically prestigious

institute of the time. She was awarded a scholarship which she repaid in full
upon graduation so someone else could benefit from it.

As a student, Marie took first place honours in Physics and Chemistry and was in
the process of deciding her doctoral thesis when a chain of coincidences brought
her into the circle of Pierre. He was older, in his mid thirties, and had despaired
of ever finding a suitably intelligent companion in life. It so happened that Marie
was introduced to her future husband at a time when she had an engineering
contract and was after a particular technology that Pierre had recently invented,
to do with exact measurement of electrical currents. They chatted at a dinner
party of a mutual friend and just did not want to stop chatting. They were not
only kindred spirits - their minds matched each other's perfectly. They kept on
seeing each other to discuss projects. And then they kept seeing each other
because they could not bear to be apart.

There is so much I admire about this couple. They had a spirit of voluntary
poverty. They were totally dedicated to their work. They lived with very little
and that did them just fine. And they worked hard. Marie had decided to do her
doctoral thesis on radioactivity, a recently discovered phenomenon in uranium.
Marie posed herself questions such as, "Are other elements also radioactive?"
And, "Is it just the uranium itself that is radioactive, or could there be other trace
elements causing radioactivity?" So her first experiments tested samples of
uranium pitch blend to see if they returned consistent readings. They did not!

The Curie's dilemma was always the need for a laboratory. Not until after they
had won two Nobel prizes were they conceded one. These experiments that so
revolutionised the world of medicine were conducted in a ramshackle wooden
shack that had an ineffective heater and a roof that leaked. Marie's first
experiments concluded that there must be other radioactive substances within
uranium pitch blend besides uranium. She optimistically hoped that it might be
as much as 1% of the uranium!

To find out, she pursued uranium pitch blend, and because it was not the
currently useful stuff, she got it for just the cost of delivering it. It was literally
dumped in a big pile outside the shed, some 20 tonnes of it. This material was
wheeled by barrow into the shed a few kilos at a time by Marie. It took four
years of this sifting and refining work to extract a single gram of radium.

Meanwhile, Pierre had discovered another radioactive element - polonium. And

later, actinium. These were in even more minute traces than the radium.
Throughout those long years, Pierre used to say, "I hope it has a pretty colour."

The new element did not show its colour in the daylight. So the couple went
home, had tea, put their baby daughter to bed, called in Pierre's father to
babysit, then snuck out in the dark, went into the shed and sat looking at their
discovery glow in the dark like lights on a Christmas tree.

Radium! Its properties were stupefying. Its rays penetrated the hardest and
most opaque matter. Only a thick screen of lead seemed capable of stopping the
insidious rays in their invisible flight.

It defied the known theories of the atomic world. In just one hour it produced a
quantity of heat capable of melting its own weight of ice. If it was protected
against external cold it grew warmer, and its temperature would go up as much
as ten degrees centigrade or more above that of the surrounding atmosphere.

It spontaneously produced a gas which was also active and destroyed itself
clearly even when enclosed in a glass tube.

It was luminous.

It made an impression on photographic plates through black paper; it made the

atmosphere a conductor of electricity and thus discharged electroscopes at a
distance; it coloured the glass receivers which had the honour of containing it
with mauve and violet; it corroded and, little, by little, reduced to powder the
paper of the cottonwool in which it was wrapped.

It gave phosphorescence to a large number of bodies incapable of emitting light

by their own means. Diamonds could be made phosphorescent by the action of
radium.

And it was contagious. Whatever came into even remote contact with it acquired
radioactivity also.

But the most important quality of all was to be in the treatment of cancer. It
could reduce and eradicate tumours and enable the surrounding tissue to grow
back.

Radium was the new buzz word and became interesting to all sorts of people for
all sorts of reasons. It became of immense financial interest. Pierre did not want
to have to discuss this with his wife, but he did so as a matter of courtesy. They
could patent the extraction methods. They would live in financial comfort for the
rest of their lives. Marie's response - No way! It belongs to the whole world.
They shared their knowledge with whoever wanted it.

And so they continued to live poor and hard working. For a long time
unrecognised in France, they were recognised everywhere else. They were
awarded prize after prize. At one glittering function to which they wore their
same old shabby clothes, Pierre whispered to Marie, "How many laboratories do
you think those diamond necklaces would buy?"

Then in 1903 came Nobel Prize number one which they were both awarded. A
large part of the money was given to Marie's sister and brother in law for their
new sanitorium.

Tragedy came not long after. Pierre was knocked down in the street by a
horsedrawn carriage he had not seen. The carriage went right over his skull and
crushed him.

Marie was devastated in that hidden and restricted way she had. She kept his
blood stained clothes for a long time. She talked to him via her diary. And she
continued his work.

What to do with her, was the concern of the scientific and academic world.
Pierre had been appointed as head of the Physics Department at the Sorbonne.
It was decided Marie should take his place.

The first lecture was packed. People queued out the door and down the street.
She took off exactly at the point where Pierre had left off. And on she battled,
adjusting her family's circumstances and working to support her two young
daughters and PIerre's father.

A second Nobel Prize was awarded and then war broke out. At this time, the
French had actually conceded her a laboratory and even better - an Institute of
Radium. She did not want it to suffer in the war and so she opted to send her
daughters overseas but stay behind in Paris to protect her and Pierre's work.

This woman was simply amazing. She thought to herself, "How can we make x
ray facilities available in a mobile way for the army surgeons?" And she fitted
out a car, using the current from the motor to activate the machinery. She would
drive it around the army surgical stations and train people to operate it. Then go
back to Paris and get another one. Doctors just raved about it. With these x ray
cars they could pinpoint the exact location of a piece of shrapnel and extract it
without having to search for it.

The world owes much to Marie and Pierre Curie, to their gift of intelligence, to
their dedication to science and to sharing their discoveries freely with the world.
Over and over again this couple could have selfishly obtained financial
advantage from their discoveries. But they steadfastly refused to. The original
gramme of radium would be worth a million francs at least. Marie donated it
instead.

The Curies enabled one another to achieve greatness. Their love had a life of its
own that gave so much to others. Their entertainments were home grown and
close to nature - bike rides and hikes in the forest. They took nothing for
themselves and gave to the world its first cancer treatment, its first x ray units
and three Nobel Prizes as their daughter Irene also was awarded one. Truly, a
great love story!