Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-01-17
M M e. CURIE.
Wonderful Little Woman Who Put the
Scientific World to Guessing.

Wonderful Little Woman Who Put the
| Scientific World to Guessing.
A body Of men, serious, erudite, and
cautious, to whose ranks no woman
has ever been admitted, is debating
within itself, but with all Paris, al
France, and all the world awaiting the
decision, the wisdom of admitting q
certain Polish woman to the honor OF
its membership. This body is the
French Academy Of Sciences and the
woman is Nine. Sklodowska Curie, the
humble wife of an humble professor OF
, chemistry who discovered radium and
evolved the whole science Of radio ac-
tivity which threatens to overturn the
theories of hundred physicists and
chemists dead and living.
There is no evidence that Nine. Gu
| rie wants to be admitted to the Acad-
| emy of Sciences. She has persistently
refused all honors and favors thus far
and certainly the academy has little to
give her. She Is already fuller OF
achievements than any member of the
austere society. Her name Is now more
widely familiar than those of any ten
of the men who are now debating about
her eligibility. Certainly it would be
conventional honor for Nine. Curie.
The prestige of the academy is great
but the prestige of enormous accom-
plishment Is greater, and the scientists
of the world in this era are beginning
to believe that Nine. Curie stands at
the turning point in science-the point
where all the fundamental theories of
energy, light, and the chemical system
of elements will have to be discarded
and remolded.
New Element Discovered In 1900.
In 1900 the Curies discovered the ele-
ment that takes the world back to
Newton's corpuscular theory Of light,
the metal with the incomprehensible
radiations which seem to burn forever
and are yet not fire, which have the
weirdest medicinal qualities and yet
are poison to the flesh, which seem to
contain the secret of eternal youth and
have led scientists to doubt the use
fulness of all their classiications Of
matter and to wonder vaguely If the
outcome of it all will be proof of the
proto- atomic theory.
Certainly this mother of two children
who came to Paris a few years back
and lived in poverty in the Latin quar-
ter has been the greatest contributor
to the chemical and physical sciences
in this generation, and the Academy of
Sciences, whose membership spells dis
tinction, hesitates and debates within
itself as to whether a woman shall be
admitted to its ranks, while the woman
in question lectures, experiments, and
cares for her children, Indifferent to
their decision. When one is solving
universal problems honors that will be
forgotten long before ones name has
ceased to be a thing to conjure with
are lightly considered.
Nine. Curie is by birth a Polish wo-
man. Her father was a professor Of
physics in college in Warsaw. Like
the traditional instructor, he was ex-
ceedingly poor, and every spare cent
he could save from his salary went
into apparatus for his laboratory.
Prof. Sklodowski could not afford an
fused to allow him a man to help him
clean up after his classes. He had to
be in his laboratories all day prepar-
ing for his work, and then stayed late
every night to clean up and wash his
implements. When the little Sklodow-
ska could scarcely read she was press
ed into service as test tube washer,
and spent long days with her father
in his classes doing the rough work In
his experiments and securing the
tubes, beakers, and crucibles as the
students finished with them.
The time came when she had eX-
hausted the possibilities of her fathers
laboratory, and it was decided that
she should go to Paris. When she ar
rived there she found that she did not
have enough money to pay the tuition
at the university, so she was forced to
enter a little technical school where
the expenses were almost nothing and
the prospects for her advancement not
so promising either. Her tutor was
Prof. Curie a man of almost middle
age, with some slight scientific dis
tinction but no salary to speak of and
no general recognition:
Power of Analysis Almost Intuition.
The instructor marveled at the earn
estness Of his little Polish pupil and
soon discovered that she had facul-
ty for absorbing everything he pro-
pounded and keen sense OF analysis
which amounted almost to intuition.
She soon outstripped all her fellow stu
dents and Prof. Pierre Curie appealed
officially to his faculty for the power
to make her his assistant. They would
not grant her salary, however, so she
served as a helper once more at no
salary, working constantly with her
former tutor at his experiments.
Pierre Curie found new employment
in the Mechanics institute in the des-
olate quarter back Of the Pantheon and
his serious little helper went with him.
Again she was unable to get a salaried
position and continued to work unpaid
for Curie himself. Curie's income was
small enough but they thought they
could do better If they united their re-
sources, so they were married. They
went to live in the old Latin quarter
in students apartments and continued
their work under better circumstances.
They did not live any better, however;
that was not the object. But they were
able to spend so much more on appar-
atus and chemicals.
Then Nine. Curie secured position
as a lecturer in the normal schools at
Sevres. Again there was more money
for scientific work. In 1896 Henri
Becquerel accidentally discovered the
emanation Of light from uranium.
He made an exposure Of a plate
without sufficient sunlight in the pres
ence of uranium, and, believing that the
plate was still good because so little
light had reached it, he put it away to
be used at later date. For some reason
he developed it and found to his aston
ishment that clear impression had
been made-as clear as it could have
been done in bright sunlight. He re-
membered the circumstances under
which his plate had been exposed and
set to work on his study of
the "Becquerel' rays.
Mime. Curie Makes Good "Guess."
When Nine. Curie was first shown a |
bit of this uranium extracted from Bo-
hemian pitchblende she jumped to the
conclusion that there were other sub
stances in the compound which could
better account for these emanations.
She told Prof. Curie about 1t, and, |
though her belief was founded on lit |
tie more than intuition, he had come to
have considerable faith in this scien-
tific guessing of Nine. Curie, so they |
set to work on pitchblende, the waste |
from the Bohemian uranium mines.
First of all, they isolated polonium.
IA.