

Marie Curie Day - jgrahamc
http://blog.jgc.org/2012/10/marie-curie-day.html

======
beloch
Marie Curie is undeniably one of the greatest female role-figures in science
of the last century. I don't know why she isn't more revered, although perhaps
are here are a few reasons why: (Note: I bring them up mostly in hopes of
pointing out how silly they are)

1\. Her work eventually killed her. There was no way for the Curies to know
what effect long-term radiation exposure would have, but it's still not a huge
image booster for her to have died from material handling practices that would
be considered idiotic today.

2\. She wasn't a "lone wolf". i.e. She did much of her work with her husband
Pierre, who shared the Nobel Prize for physics with her. Pierre was an
instructor when they met and undoubtedly gave her a huge helping hand right
when she needed it. Never mind that she came from a poor background and showed
remarkable determination just getting into college in the first place, or that
she would later be the sole recipient of a Nobel prize for chemistry!

3\. People are still scared of words like "radioactive" and "radiation". Just
look at how comfortable people are with coal power that kills thousands every
year as a part of normal operation. Then note how those same people freak out
when a nuclear plant threatens to give a handful of people cancer, but only
after being horribly mismanaged and then hit by an improbable sequence of
natural disasters! Arguably, Curie is scary by her association with something
people are unreasonably paranoid about.

4\. Let's face it, Ada Lovelace was a bit of a looker, or at least she was
painted that way. She even had a sexy sounding name. We have real, unromantic
photographs of Curie on the other hand the reveal her to be rather plain by
comparison, plus her name is now linked with a _scary_ unit of radioactive
decay! It's a case of the Belle vs the school-marm.

~~~
laktek
Not sure about in US, but I'm pretty sure majority of kids in this part of the
world knows who Marie Curie is than Ada Lovelace.

Ada Lovelace is celebrated among us the computer geeks, because she's the
female icon for the field.

~~~
njharman
I learned of Marie Curie in school (~30yrs ago US). Never heard of Ada
Lovelace until much later.

And <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper> way, way more awesome than
Ada. Length of nanosecond <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8>

------
bambax
I too love Marie Curie and the 1927 Solvay Conference's picture (which sits in
my living room for the edification of my kids!)

She's a hero here in France but I don't know about her reputation in the
English speaking world.

She was a very amazing person. Born in Poland, she studied secretly for years
in her native country, because higher education was not opened to females!
Then she moved to Paris to join her sister and continued her education during
the day, while tutoring in the evenings to pay for it.

\- - -

There was a nice play (in French) that I saw in 1989, called "Les Palmes de
monsieur Schutz"

<http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Palmes_de_monsieur_Schutz>

A movie was later made from the play. I didn't see the movie but hear it's not
too bad for that kind of adaptation from scene to screen (and it has cameos
from Pierre-Gilles de Gennes and Georges Charpak).

~~~
zalew
> She's a hero here in France

and obviously in Poland. But here we call her with her full
Polish(hers)-French(husband) name, not only the French part.

a new bridge in Warsaw was recently named after her <http://goo.gl/maps/Y1X5d>

~~~
zbyszek
And there is a university in Lublin named after her too.

~~~
ajuc
I've graduated it :)

It was created as communist-approved alternative to KUL(Catholic University of
Lublin - the only university independent from communist government in
1944-1989 Poland). Now it's the other way around (KUL is heavily influenced by
catholic church, and umcs is more-or-less independent).

BTW - my university uses French order of writting Maria name "Uniwersytet
Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej w Lublinie". Maria sometimes used French order (with
husband surname first), and sometimes used Polish order (with husband surname
second), but rarely skipped "Skłodowska" altogether.

------
mbq
Maria Skłodowska-Curie, to be exact. She moved to France and married there,
but never rejected her Polish origins. In fact she supported Polish
independence, founded a scientific institute in Warsaw and named one of the
elements she discovered after Poland.

~~~
b0rsuk
While she was born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, she studied in Paris and
Sorbonne. She was denied higher education in Poland because she was a _woman_.
Later, University of Kraków also rejected her, because she was a _woman_.

It's not nice, but I think it's OK to call her a French scientist. Poland
clearly didn't want her. It is an old tradition that best polish scientists,
athletes and inventors go abroad. They're not valued in the country.

~~~
pitiburi
So following that reasoning, a chinese scientist who made his/her PhD and
research work in the USA should be called "an american researcher"? I think
you can understand that that is not only not nice, but just wrong. If you
think that not respecting her because she was a woman was a terrible thing (I
agree), then we should not do the same, and as a sign of respect, at least, we
should call her by her real name

~~~
b0rsuk
She was technically Polish, but she didn't owe much to Poland. Especially not
her successes in science. That's what I mean. For me it's ethically wrong to
boast about Maria Skłodowska-Curie as a Polish scientist. And it's not just
"not respecting" ! It's likely that she wouldn't achieve anything if she chose
to stay in Poland. She was denied higher education !

~~~
mbq
As I wrote before, Poland didn't exist at the time -- it was occupied by
Russians trying hard to wipe or nationality for good, also by attenuating
Polish science and culture. Thus many Poles have fled for freedom of not being
oppressed for being Polish. About owning anything; she left Poland being 24,
so she get all the basics and conducted here first research in Poland thanks
to underground structures -- if born in France, she might end up as a
housewife. Anyway, the only thing that matters is that she always thought of
herself as a Pole and done much to prove it.

------
wowoc
Why do people always omit the "Skłodowska" part? She has used her maiden name
through all her life and always identified with her Polish origins, so it
might be a little bit disrespectful. There simply are too many signs that she
would want to be remembered as Marie Skłodowska-Curie, not just Marie Curie.

~~~
jgrahamc
In my case I plead ignorance. I grew up knowing her as Marie Curie and not as
Marie Skłodowska-Curie. Who does one pronounce Skłodowska?

~~~
dotborg2
yet you did not fix your mistake in your article title, guess you have a lot
of fun

imagine yourself having fun with your ignorance of some jewish scientist, it's
exactly the same problem, even though more Poles died during WWII than jews

~~~
ajuc
Chill out. No need to explain by bad will, what can be perfectly well
explained by ignorance.

BTW counting victims is really bad style. Most were Polish Jews, and how you
count them depends on what you want to prove.

------
scotty79
Marie Skłodowska-Curie

... since we recently had a story about recognizing contributions of polish
people: [http://www.smh.com.au/world/honour-for-overlooked-poles-
who-...](http://www.smh.com.au/world/honour-for-overlooked-poles-who-were-
first-to-crack-enigma-code-20121009-27b9y.html)

------
stephengillie
Marie Curie was a groundbreaking scientist and an admirable figure.

The need to celebrate the one symbolic "woman of science" is sexist and crude.
The idea of one "woman of science" makes the work of other female scientists
seem less important. The idea that the "woman of science" be symbolic makes
Marie Curie's work seem symbolic and unimportant.

Why can we not just celebrate both Marie Curie and Ada Lovelace as excellent
scientists, leaving gender out of the discussion?

~~~
jgrahamc
Just to be clear: my blog post is not arguing that there should be a Marie
Curie Day, it is arguing that if you are going to have a day named after a
woman scientist as a celebration of women in science then I think Ada Lovelace
is a poor choice.

~~~
stephengillie
I don't think either is a suitable 'trophy woman' of science.

------
krig
It seems a bit sad that we apparently only can have one woman in science. Why
not have two?

I think it's perfectly legitimate to celebrate Marie Curie but at the same
time also celebrate Ada Lovelace, and I don't see how the two are in
competition.

If we're going down that route, why are we paying so much attention to Alan
Turing, who elected him as the man in science? Aren't there other computer
pioneers worth celebrating? Well, yes, but talking about Turing doesn't lessen
them.

And, for that matter, why do women have to be their own category at all? Why
does "Ada Lovelace Day" automatically mean "Woman Day", does that mean that we
should also elect one single man to name a day after?

~~~
yummyfajitas
_If we're going down that route, why are we paying so much attention to Alan
Turing, who elected him as the man in science?_

No one. He isn't "the man in science" - only a few computer geeks know about
him. The man in science is Einstein.

I seriously doubt the man on the street could name anyone else, with the
possible exception of "schizophrenic Russel Crowe".

~~~
krig
Precisely. Would anyone argue that instead of Einstein Day, we should have
Turing Day? No, the objection to that would be that for one thing they have
very little in common, so why would one replace the other, and for the other
part, why can't we have both an Einstein Day and a Turing Day? Both valid
points. So why are women different, why is it the case that the only way Curie
can become more prominent is if Lovelace takes a step back?

The choice of Turing as an example: He was a closer match to Lovelace in being
a computer science pioneer.

------
Surio
Agreed! Our school curriculum covered Marie Curie on multiple subjects:
Chemistry and English (her biography made for inspirational reading) and by
contrast, Lovelace has had what one would call "honourable mention" ;-)

I keep referring back to this topic more and more these days...
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiglers_law_of_eponymy>

~~~
jimhefferon
Link shoud be to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy>

~~~
Surio
Thank you, kindly. :)

------
RyanMcGreal
I'm astounded by the number of radioactive quack products still being
manufactured currently:

<http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/quackcures/quackcures.htm> (see the bottom
of the page)

Most of them seem to originate in Japan.

------
precisioncoder
This woman is an inspiration. She fought great challenges to stand on equal
ground with mental giants. I find her humbling and amazing.

------
CKKim
I had read about Lovelace in Doron Swade's works on Babbage, and for a long
time was "that guy" who would come into CS love-ins and attempt to correct
what I believed at the time were gross exaggerations of her contributions to
the field. Eventually I learned to keep my mouth shut since it was usually met
with hostility, and more importantly I'm not arrogant enough to think that
what I had read by one author is going to be right.

The summary of Lovelace in the OP brought this back to mind as it is exactly
what my stance had been when I'd ditched it for the more conservative "well I
guess I don't really know". I never looked into it again until now. Does
anyone have a recommendation for a balanced modern summary of her
contribution?

I believe most of what I had read by Swade was written before she was as
popular in the CS community as she now is, and when I raised his points in
discussion I was usually told he was widely regarded to hold a grudge against
her for some reason no-one really understood.

~~~
jgrahamc
> I was usually told he was widely regarded to hold a grudge against her for
> some reason no-one really understood.

Who told you that?

For an independent (of Swade) analysis you might like to read Bruce Collier's
1970 PhD thesis (<http://robroy.dyndns.info/collier/index.html>). This was
written well before Swade was on the Babbage case and was based on reading of
the primary documents. A couple of quotes from it:

"In the summer of 1843, Menabrea's paper was translated by Ada Augusta,
Countess of Lovelace, and only legitimate daughter of Lord Bryon; she
composed, in extensive consultation with Babbage, a series of long notes to
the paper, which together comprised about three times the length of Menabrea's
original version. The whole was published in Richard Taylor's Scientific
Memoirs for 1843, 92 under the title "Sketch of the Analytical Engine invented
by Charles Babbage, Esq;" this was the only extensive paper on the Analytical
Engine published in English during Babbage's life, or, indeed, up to the
present. Although it is clear that Lady Lovelace was a woman of considerable
interest and talent, and it is clear that she understood to a very
considerable degree Babbage's ideas about the general character and
significance of the Analytical Engine, and expressed them well in her notes to
Menabrea's paper, it is equally clear that the ideas were indeed Babbage's and
not hers; indeed, she never made any claim to the contrary. She made a
considerable contribution to publicizing the Analytical Engine, but there is
no evidence that she advanced the design or theory of it in anyway. And she
did not even express an interest in learning about the machine until January
5, 1841, 93 even as late as June 30, 1843, she apparently knew quite little
about the mechanical details of the Engine"

"All of this is said not to belittle Lady Lovelace, but because a very
exaggerated view has been formed by some recent writers of the significance of
her contribution to the Engine or of her role in Babbage's life."

The citations for those parts are Babbage's personal correspondence with
Lovelace that are held by the British Museum.

------
fourgrant
I am currently in the middle of reading “The Emperor of All Maladies”, a well
written "history" of cancer, that puts what she did for the disease in
perspective. Highly recommended:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/books/11book.html>

------
nollidge
Somewhat related, I highly recommend the book _Radioactive_ , which is a very
artfully done biography of Marie Curie:

<http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8968323-radioactive>

