# The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science - Hardcover

by **Dava Sobel** (Author)

**The acclaimed Pulitzer Prize finalist and #1 _New York Times_ bestselling author of _Galileo's Daughter_ crafts a luminous chronicle of the life and work of the most famous woman in the history of science, and the untold story of the many young women trained in her laboratory who were launched into stellar scientific careers of their own**

"Even now, nearly a century after her death, Marie Curie remains the only female scientist most people can name," writes Dava Sobel at the opening of her shining portrait of the sole Nobel laureate decorated in two separate fields of science--Physics in 1903 with her husband Pierre and Chemistry by herself in 1911. And yet, Sobel makes clear, as brilliant and creative as she was in the laboratory, Marie Curie was equally passionate outside it. Grieving Pierre's untimely death in 1906, she took his place as professor of physics at the Sorbonne; devotedly raised two brilliant daughters; drove a van she outfitted with x-ray equipment to the front lines of World War I; befriended Albert Einstein and other luminaries of twentieth-century physics; won support from two U.S. presidents; and inspired generations of young women the world over to pursue science as a way of life.

As Sobel did so memorably in her portrait of Galileo through the prism of his daughter, she approaches Marie Curie from a unique angle, narrating her remarkable life of discovery and fame alongside the women who became her legacy--from France's Marguerite Perey, who discovered the element francium, and Norway's Ellen Gleditsch, to Mme. Curie's elder daughter, Irène, winner of the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. For decades the only woman in the room at international scientific gatherings that probed new theories about the interior of the atom, Marie Curie traveled far and wide, despite constant illness, to share the secrets of radioactivity, a term she coined. Her two triumphant tours of the United States won her admirers for her modesty even as she was mobbed at every stop; her daughters, in Ève's later recollection, "discovered all at once what the retiring woman with whom they had always lived meant to the world."

With the consummate skill that made bestsellers of _Longitude_ and _Galileo's Daughter_, and the appreciation for women in science at the heart of her most recent _The Glass Universe_, Dava Sobel has crafted a radiant biography and a masterpiece of storytelling, illuminating the life and enduring influence of one of the most consequential figures of our time.

### Author Biography

**Dava Sobel** is the author of the international bestseller _Longitude_, the bestselling Pulitzer Prize finalist _Galileo's Daughter_, _The Planets_, _A More Perfect Heaven_, _And the Sun Stood Still_, and _The Glass Universe_, and co-author of _The Illustrated Longitude_. She is the recipient of the Individual Public Service Award from the National Science Board, the Bradford Washburn Award, the Kumpke-Roberts Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. A former _New York Times_ science reporter, and currently editor of the "Meter" poetry column in _Scientific American_, she lives on Long Island.

**Number of Pages:** 336

**Dimensions:** 1.2 x 9.1 x 6 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** October 08, 2024

## Details

- **Price:** 30.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 30.00 USD | In stock |

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- The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science - Hardcover

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