Marie Curie’s 1911 Nobel Prize win, her second, for the discovery of radium and polonium, would have been trigger for public celebration in her undertakeed France, however for the close toly simultaneous revelation of her affair with fellow physicist Paul Langevin, the fellow standing to the suitable of a 32-year-old Albert Einstein within the above group photo from the 1911 Solvay Conference in Physics.
Each stories broke whereas Curie—unsurprisingly, the only real girl within the picture—was attending the conference in Brussels.
Equally unsurprisingly, the press preferred le scandale to la réalisation scientifique. Intercourse sells, then and now.
The fires of radium which beam so mysteriously…have simply lit a fireplace within the coronary heart of one of many scientists who studies their motion so devotedly; and the spouse and the children of this scientist are in tears.…
—Le Journal, November 4, 1911
There’s no denying that the affair was painful for Langevin’s family, particularly his spouse, Jeanne, who supplied the media with incriminating letters from Curie to her husband. She will need to have been conscious that Curie could be the one to bear the brunt of the general public’s disapproval. Double standards with regard to gender are nothing new.
A furious throng gathered outfacet of Curie’s home and anti-Semitic papers, dissatisfied with labeling the pioneering scientist a mere dwelling wrecker, declared—erroneously—that she was Jewish. The timeline was tweaked to suggest that Curie had taken up with Langevin prior to her husband’s demise. Fellow radiochemist Bertram Boltwooden seized the opportunity to declare that “she is precisely what I all the time thought she was, a detestable fool.”
Within the midst of this, Einstein, who had made Curie’s acquaintance on the conference, proved himself a real buddy with a “don’t let the bastards get you down” letter, written on November 23. Other than a delicate allusion to Langevin as a person with whom he felt privileged to be in contact, he avoided malestioning the reason for her misfortune.
A buddyly phrase can go a good distance in instances of disgrace, and Einstein supplied his new buddy with some stoutly unequivocal ones, denouncing the scandalmongers as “reptiles” feasting on sensationalistic “hogwash”:
Excessively esteemed Mrs. Curie,
Don’t giggle at me for writing you without having anyfactor sensible to say. However I’m so enraged by the bottom manner wherein the public is currently daring to concern itself with you that I absolutely should give vent to this really feeling. However, I’m convinced that you simply consistently despise this rabble, whether or not it obsequiously lavishes respect on you or whether or not it makes an attempt to satiate its lust for sensationalism! I’m impelled to let you know how a lot I’ve come to admire your intellect, your drive, and your honesty, and that I consider myself fortunate to have made your personal acquaintance in Brussels. Anyone who doesn’t number amongst these reptiles is certainly happy, now as earlier than, that now we have such personages amongst us as you, and Langevin too, actual people with whom one feels privileged to be in contact. If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply don’t learn that hogwash, however moderately go away it to the reptile for whom it has been fabricated.
With most amicable regards to you, Langevin, and Perrin, yours very truly,
A. Einstein
PS I’ve determined the statistical legislation of movement of the diatomic molecule in Planck’s radiation area by the use of a comical witticism, naturally below the constraint that the construction’s movement follows the legal guidelines of standard mechanics. My hope that this legislation is legitimate in actuality may be very small, although.
That deliberately geeky put upscript quantities to another candy present of support. Perhaps it fortified Curie when every week later, she obtained a letter from Nobel Committee member Svante Arrhenius, urging her to skip the Prize ceremony in Inventoryholm. Curie rejected Arrhenius’ suggestion thusly:
The prize has been awarded for the discovery of radium and polonium. I consider that there isn’t any connection between my scientific work and the information of private life. I cannot settle for … that the appreciation of the value of scientific work needs to be influenced by libel and slander concerning private life.
For a extra in-depth take a look at Marie Curie’s eveningmarish November, confer with “Honor and Dishonor” the sixteenth chapter in Barbara Goldsmith’s Obsessive Genius: The Inside World of Marie Curie.
Observe: An earlier version of this put up appeared on our website in 2018.
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Ayun Halliday is an writer, illustrator and theater maker in NYC.
