Talk:Marie Curie/Archive 1

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Polish Russian?

Marie Curie, also known as Marya Salomee Sklodowska, was a true Pole. She was under the rule of Russians which forced the Poles to speak and learn the Russian ways. In her early childhood people just called her Manya, not Marya. But as she grew older her sister, Bronya, and her decided to save up enough money and move to France to become doctors. When Manya moved to France, just to blend in she changed her name to Marie, and then got married to a man Pierre Curie, which changed her last name to Curie.

-K.K.

Old talk

"... she was not allowed admission into any Russian or Polish universities..." There were no Polish universities at that time. It was just after January Uprising and all Polish universities were shut down by Russians.

"She and Linus Pauling are the only two people who have won Nobel Prizes in two different fields." Huh???? What about Einstein?

Einstein won it once, and not even for the theory of relativity, but for the photoelectric effect. Einstein did 4 major publications: in 1905, special relativity, the photoelectric effect, and Brownian motion; later, general relativity. However, he did only get once the Nobel. David.Monniaux 09:07, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Einstein only one the Nobel Prize once, not twice!


Could someone in the know clarify what is meant by the "sometimes reeking of xenophobia" statement (in reference to the scandal). Is the article saying that xenophobic things were said about Marie in the press in reaction to the scandal?

That's exactly what it's saying. --Fastfission 02:22, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

article name should be Marie Skłodowska-Curie?

Listening to NPR's Talk of the Nation radio show about Marie Skłodowska-Curie, I heard the author of a recent book about her emphasize that she was proud of her original Polish surname "Skłodowska" and preferred that it be included in her name. I think that was said to be on her gravestone, and the common usage outside of France also. Can someone confirm this? I also see references to "Marie Curie-Skłodowska", and even "Skłodowski". --NealMcB 21:47, 2004 Dec 10 (UTC)

Looks like her dad's last name was Sklodowski, and hers was sklodowska - perhaps the spelling is due to difference in gender?

Yes, the difference in ending is a male/female distinction. I have maternal ancestors who are Ukrainian and Polish. For example, Mr. Sklodowski's wife is Mrs. Sklodowska. Their male children are surnamed Sklodowski, and their female children are surnamed Sklodowska. This is normal and accepted in Poland. In the United States (particularly at Ellis Island), it caused some confusion. To conform to the United States custom, families typically adopted one form of the surname or the other.

130.13.1.230 (talk) 01:03, 20 January 2008 (UTC)John Paul Parks130.13.1.230 (talk) 01:03, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Maria Sklodowska was born as the fifth and youngest child of Bronsilawa Boguska, a pianist, singer, and teacher, and Wladyslaw Sklodowski, a professor of mathematics and physics.
http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~zbzw/ph/sci/msc.htm --NealMcB 16:32, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)
http://www.polishroots.org/surnames/surnames_endings.htm about Polish surnames endings :)--Emax 16:42, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Polish adjectives have different forms for the genders. Surnames ending in -ski are regarded as adjectives, so they, too, reflect gender with different endings. Thus Janowski is the nominative form for a male; Janowska is the same form for a female.--Emax 16:42, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Maria (or Marie) Skłodowska-Curie is correct.--Emax 16:45, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I strongly disagree about the propriety of this renaming. Even what she wanted to be known by is less important than what she was known by. According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles)
  • Most general rule overall: use the most common form of the name used in English if none of the rules below cover a specific problem.
The Maria Sklodowska-Curie form should, of course, be listed in the opening paragraph and should be a redirect. Gene Nygaard 09:02, 9 May 2005 (UTC)


Thanks! See also: NPR Talk of the Nation Science Friday on her: http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgDate=10-Dec-2004&prgId=5 --NealMcB 16:55, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Great entry, but it tends to repeat itself in a number of places. Also, the grammar could use some polish.

One book on Curie (by Sarah Dry) says that her Polish name was "Manya" (Marie is the French version). Anybody know enough Polish, or enough about Curie, to know if that's true? --Fastfission 02:22, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Her (Polish) name was "Maria". So, "Mania" was probably her nickname (but i'm not sure).--Emax 03:25, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
I have heard of the nickname "Mania". Her nickname wasn't "Manya", that is incorrect in the Polish language. It would be "Mania"

Nevertheless, moving the page to 'Maria Sklodowska-Curie' is a mistake. She is overwhelmingly known as Marie Curie. The Google test gives the ratio as something like 1,700,000 to 11,200. If you are now working through all the 'what links here' links, and they are all dab links for 'Marie Curie', that tells you there is a problem. Remember, Wikipedia naming convention puts a page at its most common usage so that if someone guesses a link they usually get it right. It has nothing to do with political correctness. As it stands at the moment the article doesn't even mention her French name in the lead paragraph, so anyone following a link for 'Marie Curie' can't even be sure they arrived at the right page. By all means mention and discuss her Polish name in the article, but leave the page where people would expect to find it. -- Solipsist 19:24, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Numbers(http://www.google.com, Advanced Search): 
[1] 27,400 English pages for "Maria Sklodowska Curie".
[2] 15,000 English pages for "Maria Curie" -Sklodowska.

Listowy 13:01, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Numbers as of September 2006 (http://www.google.com, Advanced Search): 
[3] 39,200 English pages for "Maria Sklodowska Curie".
[4] 29,000 English pages for "Maria Curie" -Sklodowska.

WizardFusion 20:18, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

What is your intrepetation of these results? I'm not clear on the relevence of google hits for the two searches you've used in relation to a decision on naming the article. --SiobhanHansa 21:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The commemorative plaque gives her name as Marja Curie-Skłodowska. So I would suggest sticking with Marie Curie for the simple reason that there are no variants to her French name. ~ trialsanderrors 23:02, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

--14:37, 13 October 2007 (UTC)CyberbyberNo Way! no one would know who she was!

Her full name is stated quite clearly on the very first line of the article, don't worry ;-) Neobros 14:47, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Id' like to add my zwei groschen to this discussion. Maria Skłodowska was *never* named Maria Curie-Skłodowska, it was communist propaganda. She legally changed her name to Marie, then married Pierre. Nevertheless, she is so widely known as being Polish, that IMHO there's no need to fight reality in order to regain her as a Pole.

LMB (talk) 06:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

She continues to be known in post-communist Poland as "Maria Skłodowska-Curie." And why not? Her son-in-law changed his name to "Frédéric Joliot-Curie." Nihil novi (talk) 08:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Ever since she married Pierre Curie, in Poland she has always been known as "Maria Skłodowska-Curie." Nihil novi (talk) 02:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Removal of copyvio content

I have reverted to MOSforever's version because 24.13.141.112 added copyvio content from Britannica. A couple of recent changes to the remaining content have been restored. GeorgeStepanek\talk 20:56, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Requested move 1

Maria Sklodowska-Curie → Marie Curie – She is overwhelmingly better known by the French version of her name, 'Marie Curie'. Maybe there is a PC or nationalistic reason to use the Polish name, but it is a long way from gaining common currency. I randomly checked half a dozen links from its 'WhatLinksHere' and as expected all of them were dab links for [[Maria Sklodowska-Curie|Marie Curie]], most interwikis use Marie Curie and the Google ratio is 1,700,000 to 11,200 in favour of Marie Curie. Of course the article used to be at Marie Curie and it looks like the change was made last December following comment on a recent biography. Personally I didn't notice until someone got round to updating the page links earlier this month. In any case it looks like a move that needs wider attention. — Solipsist 05:55, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. violet/riga (t) 10:41, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

The article should be moved back.--Witkacy 21:51, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 :) I'm impressed, that's a pretty stylish argument. However the issue over the article naming is not so much about the name Marie Curie/Maria Sklodowska-Curie liked to use herself, so much as the name most readers and editors would expect to use to find or link to the article. The list of links strongly suggests most people expect to find the article at Marie Curie.
Distinctions about the variations of name MC would have used at different times of her life is something that the article could usefully expand upon. Did she always use Maria Sklodowska-Curie, or was that only after Pierre had died? What name did she use for publication of their papers on radium and polonium? How is it that most of us know of her under the French version of her name? Also this diploma actually uses the first name Marie, not Maria or Manya as discuss above. -- Solipsist 20:59, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
If most readers look for Marie Curie, AND the Nobel Prize was to Marie Sklodowska-Curie, THEN it should be a redirect from MC to MSC rather than from MSC to MC.--Grzes 23:38, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Correction on the Langevin Scandal

After all of my studies, I still remain unconvinced on the veracity of the Langevin Scandal. That such stories were circulated by a zealous press is true, but whether an affair between Marie and a married man ever happened is questionable. In fairness to historic accuracy, this article should reflect that whether such an affair really happened is unknown. Her five closest friends, repected academians, testified that the press' accounts were bitterly concocted and the letters forged. --Chrisbaird.ma 01:59, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

I've just cleaned up a line of vandalism connected with this item. It had persisted through quite a number of other edits. It's disturbing how much vandalism this page gets. Charmii 02:46, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

French or Polish?

I read in the article she's been Polish-born French-chemist. It's a lie. She was Polish-chemist. A woman that leaves her home country and marries a foreigner doesn't make herself French. Remember that both her parents were Poles (and of course Maria was born in Poland - though occupied by Russians).

I was going to agree, but now I'm not sure. I checked some other articles that I thought might support a change to "Polish chemist", and some agreed and some did not. For example, Louis Agassiz is a "Swiss-born American zoologist", but Leonhard Euler is still a "Swiss mathematician" even though his work was in St. Petersburg and Berlin. I can really see it both ways. Perhaps you could explain why you think moving to France, acquiring a French family, and living, working one's whole life, and dying in France does not make one a French chemist? -- Dominus 13:37, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

So I'm trying to answer your question.

Suppose somebody from France leaves that country and spends the rest of his/her life, for instance, in the United States - but this very person doesn't reject his/her French roots. Do you believe that people from France would agree to call him or her an American, especially if he/she was two-times Nobel Prize winner? I don't think so. I have never heard that James Joyce wasn't an Irish writer though he left his country quite soon and didn't use his native language in his literature. This is also the case of some Polish writers that were compelled to emigrate (very often famous, like Witold Gombrowicz), but nobody calls them Frenchmen, Germans and so on. Probably if Maria Skłodowska wasn't a woman and didn't change her last name, it woudln't be so easy to write "French chemist".

Thus my purpose here is to convince you (and other people as well) that we shouldn't create an erroneous impression or belief that something was more complicated than it really was. It's sufficient - I think - to stress the fact that France was her home (and more), but on the other hand she has never forgot her home country (she established scientific institutes in Warsaw). And in the result I want to prevent the situation you can see in "Young Einstein" movie (I know, it's a comedy, full of irony): Einstein meets young French woman, Marie Curie. Probably most people in the world believe Frideric Chopin was French (the case of this composer is of course a little bit more complicated), and that British mathematicians broke Enigma codes (British were not able to admit somebody else did it - but in the face of more and more proofs their minister did it recently).

As for those sources that call Skłodowska French chemist: you will not find it in Polish literature. But I understand why this is a hard case for French: this woman was the first woman ever to teach at Sorbonna and buried in Panteon: it's not possible she is not French!

My advice then is such: though philosophers don't agree what the truth is, I suggest not to complicate the truth if this is not necessary. Sounds like Ockham's razor, isn't it?

All the best, Greg


===== "hard case for French" ===== you mean easy case for Poland who have bad habit to get natives Nobel prizes in science for other country like for USA Albert Abraham Michelson 1907 Nobel prize for physics, and 3 times for France : 2 Marie Curie and Georges Charpak 1992 Nobel Prize in Physics (multiwire proportional chamber). Why Poles don't brag about Michelson ? because he was American and they are less easy than today's french ambassy or his place of birth was nothing to him ? Get fun of www.poland.gov.pl as of 19/09/2005 The Nobel Prizewinners : "MARIA CURIE SKŁODOWSKA Maria Skłodowska-Curie (1867-1934), renowned Polish physicist and chemist" is aggressive english version "MARIA SKŁODOWSKA CURIE Maria Skłodowska-Curie (1867-1934) - Physikerin und Chemikerin." neutral german and for french version MARIA CURIE_SKŁODOWSKA title is all you can get no article yet. Times to get Charpak to renew Polish citizenship he is still and well alive and may agree ! Double citizenship is ok more than ever with Europe. Or they prefer to wait some decades ? (Oh WAIT ! in Wikipedia they don't need to ask him if he want to choose or even if citizenship have a meaning for an atheist scientist : Polish agent of self-worth minister already made him a Polish something in English and French version). For the diploma picture you could put the 1903 too, where to see it ? prizes are for alive scientists and the 1911 may have been from swedish naming convention or as science community aknowledgement of his rights to a new love life...


Perhaps if she'd been a chemist in Poland, you might see her called a "Polish chemist" more often. Identify her as a "Polish nanny" if you like. Gene Nygaard 13:13, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Hey, you just shut up. Just because stupid France has no body to brag about doesn't mean they can steal other people from other countries.

Sure, I will!Greg, 02 Sept, 2:50 PM (GMT)

The thing is, Marie Curie obtained French citizenship. She possibly also had Polish citizenship. However, she did all her higher education and scientific work in France. In Poland, she could not even study chemistry, let alone be a chemist!

Frédéric Chopin is known in France as a Polish musician. As far as I know, Chopin never requested French citizenship.

Benoît Mandelbrot is a French mathematician because he has French citizenship, despite working in the United States and being born in Poland. (Additionally, he did all his studies in France.) If he had acquired US citizenship, we would call him a Polish-born US mathematician. (In addition, I heard Mandelbrot in person mocking people who pronounce him a American mathematician, saying that he was French and never acquired US citizenship.) David.Monniaux 15:17, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that citizenship always gives the correct answer here either, because by that criterion, Skłodowska-Curie was not only not a Polish chemist, she was not a Polish anything; she never held Polish citizenship. The answer must be more complicated and less clearly-defined. -- Dominus 18:53, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Then it becomes even simpler. She did all her higher studies in France, as well as all her career, held French citizenship, was married to a Frenchman, and all her family stayed in France. She didn't renege on her birth country (she had an element named Polonium etc.) though but I don't think this outweighs the rest. David.Monniaux 05:54, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
I believe it becomes more complicated, not less so. Nobody held Polish citizenship at that time, as Poland had been annexed by Russia. I think it is unreasonable to say that there were no Polish chemists, no Polish bakers, no Polish children at that time. Poles still existed as a culture and an ethnic group. The nonexistence of an official Polish citizenship does not mean that there were no Poles; it means you cannot use citizenship as a criterion in deciding whether or not someone was Polish. I am sorry to have been so oblique in my earlier message. -- Dominus 13:46, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Did she consider herself French or Polish ? --Lysy (talk) 22:13, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

You talk of Nationality, Citizenship, Roots, Achievements ? All both I would say. She had deeps concerns and the feeling of her political dutys to help Poland case more that scientific ambitions until Pierre put before her the rational dynamic of Love and Science teamwork, said work you can't -isolate- from her husband, and local "brain environnment" and support how short it was. She was pure will (polish or family history ?) and courage, scientist, woman, wife and mother and teacher. Her loves was in french in France (there if you speak french and are of some worth you are French in France heart, may take some time ...), her husband was a (french) scientist, nobels were in France (how little the meaning it have when you work for Knowledge). Work was first for their French Family and children, Fame become for mankind including Poland. She was known around the world as Marie Curie and Madame Curie for the Nobel prizes, in Poland the Curie(s) institute became Marie Curie (Sklodowska) then Maria Curie-Sklodowska then Maria Sklodowska (Curie) when the country don't need nationalism anymore. Today some revisionnist Pole put the 1/4 nobel in Polish section, Becquerel and Pierre in nowhere, Irene and Curie are still too bigs to go stealth under the carpet. Don't you know anything about Slave evil's games..?

"Don't you know anything about Slave evil's games..?"

Is it a joke?...

French chemist? Marie Curie was SO MORE

Sure we need to know from the start of MARIE CURIE article what her birthname was (she put Skłodowski in her customs papers) BUT :

The current article chronology IS somewhat twisted by Skłodowska/Dolega lobbysts : From it, it seems Maria studied freely on Bronya's money, the other way is closer to truth, by the way she also choosed the Marie firstname in France. Then we get the feeling that from the start she had always wanted to do research with a hint on her futur path to the Nobel prize, she was the chemist of the pair and was the more qualified to choose the reactions to isolate the unknown element, guided by Pierre's electrometer readings. No doubt she loved Poland and Poland's people since her first goal was to return to Poland to teach there (more than her sister's couple and their free ride activist hobby in Paris). But in fact it was Pierre's many marriage proposals, which she initially refused, who won her to do research together.

I understand that Barbara Goldsmith needs to sell her new book on some PC/feminist trend and that all polish who can cry Dolega (tens of unrelated families) on Battle ground want to call her now Skłodowska and put Curie somewhere else (thanks for her children and true family). The pacifists and idealistics they were must appreciate the touch. If Poland had been a free country in their time Polonium atomic number would be > 86 now. I would like to read the description of Poland situation at this time to explain the choice, better than the lengthy nonsense about Langevin affair and anti-Semitism in place of sexism, puritanism, nobel no-rule race and yes xenophobia in between the WW from right wing toilet paper. The same type who want to call her Maria Skłodowska Dolega now wanted to defame her then.

What was her mum birth name by the way for the matriarchal type ? Be coherent.

please read : http://nobelprize.org/physics/articles/curie/index.html

ps: please rest assured that Poland from Napoleon to WWII start to today's wars, was Never in France an "unknown land". ps2: nobody to replace the hideous Polish bank note by the prettier Marie(& heavier;-) french one ? Happy to know so much about rupies change rate, Dolega !

Recent reversion

A recent edit by Miskin, described as "She was Polish, get over it", also changed all the "ł" symbols to "Ŭ" symbols, which surely isn't right, and breaks many links. I have no opinion on whether Curie was French or Polish. I reverted Miskin's changes only to fix the orthography. -- Dominus 14:59, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Another reversion

I've reverted as someone changed her nationality in the infobox to Polish only (which wasn't changed in the main text) and made the first mention of her name in the lead into the Polish version, when it was already stated in brackets straight afterwards. I thought it was a bit strange and probably POV pushing, so I changed it back. Personally, I have no view on the nationality thing (I always thought she was French, but am aware popular perceptions can be soo wrong), so I don't think I'm POV pushing, I just thought it was our best consensus. If someone else thinks I did the wrong thing you can change it back. Terri G 18:53, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation in the spoken version

Feel free to take issue with me over my pronunciation of non-English words. That way I might come closer to getting it right the next time.  :) --Macropode 13:43, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Nationality claims

It looks like we are on the verge of another revert war over nationality issues. In general Wikipedia takes a dim view of revert wars. Before changing the article again, can we first establish a clear consensus here for the most diplomatic/correct wording on nationality issues. -- Solipsist 12:40, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Would it be acceptable to avoid the issue entirely, and just say something like:
Marie Curie (Maria Skłodowska-Curie, 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), (Dołęga coat of arms) was a Polish-born chemist who worked most of her life in France. ...
This avoids the contentious issue, which appears to be whether the abstract essence of Skłodowska-Curie was Polish or French. Instead, it sticks to the undisputed facts: She was born in Poland; she worked mostly in France. -- Dominus 13:08, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I am sorry to sabotage this nice idea, but it does not sound natural. And there is no contention to have, Curie was French because she had French nationality, that's all. If we start thinking that holding the nationality of the country is not enough to, well, make you a national of the country, there is not limits about where our imagination can lead us. It is legitimate to mention that she was of Polish origin, but she was French. Rama 13:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Let's get something clear, I'm not Polish and I don't have any personal connection to Poland nor anything Polish whatsoever. I'm making this revert from a completely neutral point of view, simply because I find the euro-centric French POV extremely retarded. Marie Curie wasn't just born in Poland to be mentioned as Polish-born, nor was she ever converted to another ethnicity. Marie Curie lived in Poland until the age of 18, which makes her purely Polish. The only special connection she had with France was the fact that she did most of her work there. What the French ignore is the fact that Marie Curie had always viewed herself as a Polish even when she worked in France (hence Polonium). It's certain that everybody in her environment (and anybody in France in general) viewed her as a foreigner, and we have the modern French petty-nationalists (who have forgotten all about the history of their country) trying to convince us that she was blatantly a French of some distant foreign background, and that was as much as Polish as Robert De Niro is Italian. In other words they think that they can apply their modern "we're all citizens of Europe"-type of theories in order to manipulate the ethnic background of someone who was born in the 19th century (like they do today with Tony Parker and Zinédine Zidane. And if nothing of that convinces you then just try to think realistically by putting yourself in her shoes: You move at the age of 18 from your Russian-occupied homeland in order to work in a "civilised" country. Would you change your ethnicity into something else? Would you wand some random nobodies 100 from your death to be claiming your origin? Do you honestly think that Marie Curie would be somehow honored to be known as a Frenchie? We all know the answer to that, well all except the French. In a world that's divided between Barbarians and French, there's not greater honour that being recorded in history as a French, so what's the point to even question what dead people's ethnic feelings were. I mean she's in the Pantheon and she's officially labeled as a French, what more could she want? Anyway as a compromise solution I suggest to write "Polish scientist who lived most of her life in France" (eventhough it's pointed out in the biography) or something along those lines. I don't think that there's a point in trying to just avoid mentioning her nationality. This is a solution oftenly proposed in wikipedia ethnic disputes that I don't understand. People think that neutrality means simply not take anybody's side rather than searching for the right one. Miskin 13:47, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

And there is no contention to have, Curie was French because she had French nationality, that's all.

This is the exact French POV I was talking about. Nationality is different to ethnicity in case you have never noticed. Have you ever heard of "ethnic goups"? The entire notion of nation-states is a modern (French-promoted) concept, which is independent of ethnicity. Go tell the Greeks who live in Constantinople that they're Turkish just because they have a Turkish nationality, or the Catholics of Northern Ireland that they're British. I'm calling this a French POV because France is probably the only European country that doesn't distinct between ethnos and nation. They think they will sort out all ethnic minority problems by labeling everyone as "French" and by using ridiculous terms such as Franco-French, Franco-Algerian and Franco-Polish in order to be politically correct when they're talking about ethnic groups of French nationality. That logic is probably perfectly correct in the French wikipedia, but is a POV in the English one. Miskin 15:21, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I am not willing to bring Marie Curie to the French side. It so happens that she was French, that's all. If she is, you could as well be Polish too, by such arbitrary criteria.
As for your ethnicity thing, I have never yet seen any article saying that "X is black", "Y is Aryan", "Z is Yellow". We are talking about her nationality, about which there is nothing to argue. Rama 15:23, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Due all the respect but the "black, Aryan, Yellow" example that you gave was completely out of order and irrelevant to what I said. And for crying out loud, just take a look a the French article: "Marie Curie-Skłodowska (Varsovie, 7 novembre 1867 - Sancellemoz, 4 juillet 1934), est une physicienne polonaise." - period. Then a short biography follows which describes her connection to France, there's not a labeling of "French scientist of Polish origin" like you people are on about, I mean what more proof do you want? I suppose the French editors were smart enough to ditch the nationalist POVs and get some serious work done. I often wonder why can't this happen in the english wikipedia. Miskin 15:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Then the French is wrong and has to be corrected.
Marie Curie held a position as a professor in the Sorbonne at a time when it was required to be French to hold the position. Rama 16:10, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
And for the record, the French Wikipedia had been edited by an anonymous user with a poor command of French, some time ago, and had never been corrected since.
Now, if you take some "serious" site, say, the Nobel Foundation, you will notice that "France" is written beside her name. I very much doubt that the Nobel Foundation in inhabited solely by people driven by what you call "euro-centric French POV extremely retarded" Rama 16:33, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Check please Listowy 10:47, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
"...On the 10th of December, 1911, Marie Sklodowska, a Polish chemist of world-wide reputation, wife of Professor Pierre Curie, was present at the solemn Swedish Nobel Prize ceremony to receive the Prize for Chemistry ..." from Check please Listowy 10:49, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Check please nothing or better Listowy / Miskin bad faith, their link is for Frédéric Joliot Irène Joliot-Curie 1935 prize, no slkodoanything there.
Well yes, it reads "Presentation Speech by Professor W. Palmær". This chap is entitled to hold any opinion he wants, but the fact remains that the official page of the Nobel Prize says French.
And anyway it is not the Nobel Prize citation which makes Curie French, it is her nationality. I merely mentioned this page as one particular example. Rama 12:13, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Rama don't you think that you're not exactly the most neutral person to be in charge of this article? I mean listen to yourself for a moment. You claim that people's ethnic origins are defined by their nationalities, how irrational is that? You're actually questioning common knowledge here. What were the Balkan Wars all about? What was WW2 all about? What was NATO's war on Milosevic all about? Were all those wars conducted due to people's wild ethnic imagination? And what about the ethnicities of people prior to the invention of nation-state? Were there no ethnicities? And at the end of day, what about Marie Curie's ethnic status before coming to France? According to your criteria she must have been a Russian', since to Polish nationality existed at the time. So if you don't want yourself to be following double standards, you should write in the article that she was a French chemist of Russian origin. Any mention of Polish will be contradictory to the logic that you have just explained to us. Miskin 14:18, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I do not claim anything about your so-called "ethnic origins"; this question is irrelevant.
Marie Curie lived most of her life in France, including all the higher studies which later made her what she became; she married a French; she founded a family in France; she died in France; but most of all, she had French nationality. I don't know what you mean with this " ethnicity" of yours (an arbitrary notion which indeed is more related to racism, so-called "ethnic-cleansing", etc.) and frankly I do not care. If we disregard nationality to define to which country people are related, then Chopin would be French.
Additionally, you are suggesting that we label Marie Curie as a citizen of a country which did not even exist at the time. What next ? Julius Caesar would be Italian, Mozart would be Austrian ?
As for "of Russian origin", you are welcome to change it this way, but it would need to mention that the place is now what is Poland. Rama 14:36, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

She was born to Polish parents in Poland and lived there until the age of 18. Is it really rational to say that she was simply of Polish origin? A French person of foreign (Algerian) origin would be Zidane. He was born and raised in France to Algerian parents, something that makes him Franco-Algerian (but of course the article calls him simply "French"). This however has nothing to do with the case of Marie Curie. Honestly I thought that the "ethnicity vs nationality" question was common knowledge. I know this doesn't apply in France but only because the Franco-French (white French) have chosen to for political corectness, not because ethnic groups don't exist. Anyway for what my opinion matters, Julius Caesar was a Roman and not an Italian, simply because the Italian ethnicity and culture is a much later concept which originates from the North of Italy and has nothing to do with the Roman Empire (despite what fascists fantasised). Mozart would be an Austrian which at the time and up until recently was ethnically German. I'm not familiar with the case of Chopin. If you deny fundamental differences between notions such as ethnicity and nationality, then I have nothing else to say to you. Miskin 15:10, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

"Mozart would be an Austrian which at the time and up until recently was ethnically German" ? The town where Mozart was born, which is now in Austria, was in Germany. Mozart had German nationality and regarded himself as German, so I really can't figure out how you come to this bizarre "Austrian ethnically German".
And if you think that "lived there until the age of 18" is what determines the country, I would like to ask you (trying not to reach the Godwin point, I hope) when is the last time that you heard that Hitler was "an Austrian who happened to do stuff in Germany" ? Rama 15:43, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
The case of Austria and Germany is the perfect example to prove my point. Although I have even visited Mozart's house in Saltzburg, I missed the part where it did not belong to an Austrian state during his time. This of course makes no difference because Mozart admitting himself as a German actually backs up my point. From the middle ages up until WW2 there was only one German nation of various states. The "we're Austrian not German"-type of statements are completely modern and have the roots on the defeat of the Axis powers. That's the point where Austrians decided to choose nationality over ethnicity and pretend to be different from the Germans (for the well known reasons). And to be speific, even today an Austrian would never deny that he's not German, he would only say that he's not Deutsch (as you probably know those two terms are different in the German language). Denying that he's German would be spitting on his ancient history (including Mozart) and admitting that his nation began with Napoleon's conquest of the Holy Roman Empire. Without wanting to use him as a representative example, Adolf Hitler never-ever, makes a distinction between Austrian and German nations. In fact he accuses the French for trying to promote the idea of the Balkanization of Germany at the end of WWI in order to prevent the existence of a powerful unified German nation. Despite what sources "loosely" claim today, not just Hitler, but any other Austrian at the time would consider Austria as an non-unified state of the German nation. The primary target of the nazis was the unification of all German peoples into one state which would form the Reich. I really don't expect you to understand so easily, because French ideology itself follows the exact opposite tactic. Instead of creating a state out of an ethnically similar population, it has followed the strategy of assimilating different cultures into one nationality. This of course is not restricted to the French colonial policy in Africa, but includes the assimilation of European populations such as the Bretons and the Corsicans. Despite all that, I still think you're using double standards by calling her a French of Polish origin. As other editors pointed out there was no Poland nor Polish nationality at the time, hence if you want to be using logical standards, you have to say that she's a French of Russian origin. Denying her non-French ethnicity, means that you have to deny her parents' non-Russian one. Miskin 12:39, 3 October 2005 (UTC)


As for "That's the point where Austrians decided to choose nationality over ethnicity and pretend to be different from the Germans (for the well known reasons)", Hitler and many Nazi leaders were Austrians! (213.70.74.165 07:59, 30 May 2006 (UTC))


There is no double standard in this. Marie Curie was born in a part of Russia with a specific culture, and it is relevant to a number of things that she was or did later. Hence it is relevant to say taht she is of Polish origina, just like it is relevant to say that Hansi is of Alsacian origin, even though Alsace never was a nation, a country, nor an "ethny" or a "race". Rama 13:21, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Besides, your constant references to my inability "to understand so easily, because French ideology itself follows the exact opposite" is beginning to become an annoyance. I don't remember making wild guesses about your nationality, culture or ideology, and I would appreciate that you return the favour. Rama 13:28, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
I didn't mean to give any offence. I wasn't criticising French culture nor was I making a judgement on right and wrong. I just wanted to point out how things work and why French POV is the way it is. What you call "Polish origin" is simply Polish. I never mentioned the word "race" and I don't know why you're putting it in my mouth. I don't agree with the logic of "she was French because she had a French nationality for practical reasons". Robert DeNiro recently obtained an Italian nationality because his great-grandfather was an Italian immigrant in America. But is there is any logic in calling DeNiro an Italian of American origin? You see how ridiculous that is, and that your nationality logic has many gaps. DeNiro wouldn't even qualify as an Italian-American. What do you think of the compromise term "Franco-Polish" then? I mean if Zidane (born and raised in France) is called under official context a "Franco-Algerian", then I'm sure Curie who was born a raised in Poland could be called at least a "Franco-Polish" instead of a French of Polish origin. Miskin 14:11, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
The present state of the article seems appropriate to me: it avoids the ambiguity of a terminology like "Franco-Polish", which puts a nationality and an origin on the same foot, by stating the exact facts; I find it perhaps slightly long, but besides, quite acceptable. Do you have objections to it ? Rama 14:20, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand the problem. Marie Curie was a Polish-French. She was born in Poland and raised in Polish culture (actually, there was no Poland at that time (see partitions of Poland), so I adjusted the article to note that fact). The article doesn't tell us when exactly did she move to France, but I guess she was in her 20-ties, so there cannot be any doubt that Polish culture shaped her significantly. Then she spend rest of her life in France, where she married and make most of her discoveries, so there cannot be any doubt that France became her second homeland. It would be interesting to see if she had any significant relations with the large Polish diaspora in France (see Great Emigration). I guess we would need to do some research into her letters/biographies/etc. to see if she herself valued any of those cultures more then other, but I doubt it, and I think it is pretty safe to refer to her as a Polish-French person. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:50, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

First of all, I'd like to address a possible misunderstanding here. In Poland, if a woman marries, she has the choice of either adopting the husband's name completely, or add it to her own with a hyphen. When she decides for the latter, it is regarded as improper, and, yes, even offensive, to address that person with only the husband's last name.

Secondly, feel I have to comment about "the naming convention argument": 1. The "general rule" that has been quoted is aptly named so, because it has exceptions. Without keeping this in mind, it is all too easy to fall prey of an ad populum fallacy. 2. Even if that rule is accepted without exceptions, nowhere it is said that the absolute and only oracle on what can be regarded as "common" is Google. With that in mind, I'd suggest to simply dig through papers, letters etc. of that time and see which variant is more comonly used (naturally taking into the account that most of those were published in France and in French), especially by the person in question herself. It would be certainly more productive than the current discussion, on both sides.--Miki

First of all, did she consider herself Polish, French or both ? Why did she insist on using her "Skłodowska" name ? --Lysy (talk) 11:59, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I must say this hair splitting discussion sounds completely useless. From all I read about MC she was a native of Poland and she was a French scientist. In Poland she is known as Maria Curie-Skłodowska, or just Maria Skłodowska; for obvious reasons in France the preferred form is Marie Curie. Both countries can be proud of her and let's leave it at that! Tsferreira 12:37, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

she was very smart and pretty

she was very intelligent.

I have just read the French and English Wikipedia articles on this subject, in research for my French AS oral. After reading this discussion I think perhaps I should have read the Polish one as well, however I don't know any Polish so that isnt possible. In the French article the beginning says this. "Maria Curie-Skłodowska (née à Varsovie le 7 novembre 1867 et décédée à Sancellemoz le 4 juillet 1934), connue en France sous le nom de Marie Curie, est une physicienne polonaise naturalisée française" This roughly translates as: Maria-Curie Slodowska (born in Warsaw on 7 November 1867 and died in Sancellemoz on 4 july 1934), was known in France under the name of Marie Curie, was a French naturalised Polish physician. To me that paragraph sums up who she was. She was morn Maria Slodowska and married Pierre Curie as was usual at the time she took her husbands name and now her maiden name is often used with that, before it as is usual. However, she is known in France under her married surname and the French version of her first name. Both her parents were Polish so she had fully Polish blood and she was brought up there. However she spent her adult life in France, took French citizenship, did all her work in France and set up a family there. Where is the problem with that, perhaps she is Polish and French. And perhaps we should stop quibbling over minor details and accept her for who she was: A great scientist, who was born and brought up in Poland but spent her adult life and did her work in France.

--04cah 14:44, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

polonaise naturalisée française corresponds quite well to Polish-French nationality; all details are explained in the text. After all it is not that bad, since in plwiki you'll find something similar and the three versions essentially coincide. BTW, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't quote the wikipedia as a reliable source for your oral ;-) --Beaumont (@) 15:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[ Nationality/ethnicity ]=

I think part of the confusion is from the different understanding of the words. In Polish, narodowosc is something totally different from obywatelstwo (nationality vs citizenship) that's why here people preferred to use "ethnicity". Simply, in XIX century Poland did not existed, but Poles were nto seeing themselves as Prussians, Russians and Austrians, and moreover were not seen as such by the respective states. Sklodowska-Curie was raised in culture, where nationality was case of one's choice and not of citizenship. Similarly, if I would move to France and had French citizenship, I would object to being called French. I won't touch the article since I don't won't to provoke revert wars, but is simple as that. The other example posted here (Charpak etc) are wrong, since the quoted scientists were nto tied as strong to Polish culture as Curie-Sklodowska Szopen 13:51, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Radioactive notes ?

Im curious by what is written below her portrait on the page - it says that her notes were recently decontaminated - How and when was this acomplished ? Does anyone have a link to a news article about it ? Dowew 02:00, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

factoid

I removed this temporarily. May be interesting if ref. and cited. As such, difficult to understand/verify. "She had absorbed so much radiation her fingerprints can still be seen on her journal, now stored in a lead box(Marcus Chown, The Magic Furnace)." pschemp | talk 07:37, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

According to what I have found, Marie Curie still lived a few years beyond the average life expectancy for her time, despite her excessive exposure to radiation. I feel it is worth noting.

Rosalind Franklin peer review

Please read the Rosalind Franklin article and contribute to the peer review. Alun 19:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

failure?

she moved to Paris and studied chemistry and physics at the Sorbonne,

isn't math and physics correct?

--84.63.34.9 18:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

religion

is there a source for the claim that she was an atheist? I've only found info suggesting that she was a lapsed Catholic. [5]. Homagetocatalonia 19:30, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

1.25 Nobel prizes

I edited the article, writing that she was "the first two-time Nobel laureate (due to the effects of sharing, she effectively obtained 1.25 Nobel Prizes)." Somebody reverted this, claiming "You don't get a 0.25 nobel prize". This is not true, of course: the Nobel committee explicitly says how many percent of each Nobel Prize go to which recipient. Sometimes the Prize is equally shared among 3 recipients, and each gets 0.33 of the total. Sometimes one of the laureates gets 50 percent, and the other two get 25 percent each. Just check out the official Nobel Prize page. For example, Bardeen is a two-time laureate but his total is just 0.66 Nobel Prizes, less than the 1.0 total for certain one-time laureates who did not have to share with anybody. Unshared prizes have become rare though, since nowadays there are so many parallel research efforts, and most of the research is done by teams, not by outstanding individuals. That's why we have seen this recent inflation of Nobel Prize winners. Science History 13:42, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

It is certainly correct to say that she shared the 1903 prize with her husband and Henri Becquerel, but to say she only won a quarter of a nobel prize is perverse. The reference on the Nobel website page for the 1903 Physics prize [6] is to the portion of the prize money that she received - in her case 35,339.50 Swedish Kroner. Common usage describes any winner of a nobel prize, whether shared or not, as a nobel prize winner not a half or a third or a quarter-prizewinner. In its list of all winners [7] and women prize winners [8], the Nobel website does not distinguish between those who received the whole prize fund or those that shared the prize fund, they are listed equally. I think it is sufficient to say she is a double Nobel Laurete and that she shared the 1903 prize and, perhaps, say she received a quarter of the prize fund. DavidCane 23:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
But why should it be perverse to say she only won a quarter of a Nobel Prize, for heaven's sake? Look at the page you are citing: it clearly says she won 1/4 of the prize! Of course, anybody who wins a fraction of a Nobel Prize may call himself a Nobel Prize winner or a Nobel laureate, and that's how you introduce them when they give their plenary talks. But there is a clear ranking among the winners; the recent inflation of science Nobel laureates was possible only because few of them got a full prize. More laureates simply means less impact and fewer prizes per laureate. And with 1.25 prizes Curie has done exceptionally well - compare this to two-time Nobel laureate Bardeen whose total is 0.66 (he twice got 1/3 of a Nobel Prize). Science History 12:11, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
According to the Nobel website there have been 758 winners of Nobel prizes in the 104 years since the first awards. During that period there must have been hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world who worked in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and economics and who worked for peace. To be one of those selected to be the recipient of a Nobel prize, shared or not, is a huge achievement and a great honour. To receive two awards is very exceptional.
Clearly, Curie is exceptional amongst recipients for a number of reasons given in the article and particularly because she received the award twice. You refer to there being a clear ranking among winners and compare two-time winner Marie Curie to two-time winner John Bardeen and suggest that because he shared both of his prizes with two others his achievement is somehow lesser than that of Curie who shared the 1903 award and received her 1911 award alone. This is a flawed argument - try saying out loud "Curie received the Nobel prize one and a half times and John Barden received it two thirds of a time" to see how illogical it sounds. They both received the award twice; however the prize money was distributed with the fellow recipients.
You suggest that because most scientists work in teams these days and collaborate on research projects, developing the ideas of others that this is an "inflation" of the number of laureates and reduces the importance of their work and the value of their Nobel prize. Since the very beginning, the prizes have been often been shared as is only fair where a discovery or development or a peace initiative is a joint effort. In fact, it has been argued that due to the limitation to a maximum of three recipients of an award in a year, some scientists who would otherwise have been worthy of inclusion have been ignored. Your argument that a shared prize is worth less than a prize individually received would place the majority of the winners of the literature prize (which is generally awarded to just one person) on a higher ranking than winners of recent science prizes. Even if we accept that awards in such different categories can be valued against one another, this sets up some interesting comparisons. Is W B Yeats (1.0) more important than Alexander Fleming (0.33)? Is Jimmy Carter (1.0) more important than Francis Crick (0.33)?
Finally, The 1911 award citation is: "in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element". Curie and her husband Pierre worked as a team and discovered both radium and polonium together in 1898. Had Pierre not been killed in an accident in 1906 he would almost certainly have been honoured a second time with his wife for their joint discovery. As Nobel prizes are not awarded posthumously he was not. By your argument, if Pierre Curie had lived, Marie Curie would thus have received 0.75 (0.25 + 0.50) of a Nobel Prize not 1.25 - a considerable demotion in "rank" and placing her lower than the 1910 Chemistry Nobel prize winner Otto Wallach who is largely forgotten. Therefore, I maintain that the portion of the prize money that a Nobel prize winner receives is only relevant to the consideration of that particular award (specifically the distribution of the prize money) and should not be used as a method of calculating a theoretical and irrelevant ranking of the importance of award recipients as a group. DavidCane 00:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your long reply! But IMHO it's misguided - the goal here cannot be to put forth our opinions about the importance of certain scientists. Sure, maybe Pierre Curie and many others would have deserved a prize as well, maybe Albert Einstein would have deserved 5.0 prizes instead of 1.0, etc, etc... that's all POV and irrelevant. What's relevant are the facts, which are: the Nobel committee explicitly gave her 1/4 of the physics prize and a full chemistry prize. Wikipedia is not the place to judge whether she deserved it or not, or whether the rankings of the Nobel committee in general are fair (I personally don't think they are). It's the place to report the facts. Science History 10:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Another long reply I'm afraid. You seem to have completely inverted the point of my comments. I am making no judgement on the worthiness of Marie Curie in receiving her awards nor whether the Nobel committees are fair in their selection nor whether someone else should have received one as well or instead. My point is that all Nobel prize winners are of equal importance whether they have shared a prize or won one exclusively and that a ranking based on the share of the prize money is irrelevant to the honour of being declared a Nobel laureate.
My comparitive examples were given to illustrate the point that comparisons based on a prize share ranking are pointless. The comment about Pierre Curie having possibly missed out on a second award was made to indicate that Marie Curie's ranking would probably have changed if he had lived until 1911 without the value or importance of the work for which she was given the award having changed at all.
Regarding facts and point of view - I have no problem with the article stating that she received a quarter share of the 1903 prize money (see my first comment) and agree that that is, indeed, a fact, That fact, though, should be treated in the correct context - that of sharing the money. Nowhere on the Nobel website can I find a statement that a laureate that shared a prize has a lower status than one that received one exclusively, therefore, your statement that the fact that she received a quarter of the prize money indicates that she received a quarter of a Nobel prize is your own POV. I do not suggest that your fact regarding the proportion of the money she received should not be included, it should be as it is interesting (and many readers may not be aware of the way in which money is shared between Nobel prize winners), but it must be in context. To say that my comments are POV when they accord with the traditional understanding of the term "Nobel Prize winner" is incorrect. Until you can show that this traditional understanding is wrong in fact not just wrong in your opinion I feel that my original suggested wording should be used. DavidCane 13:21, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree: obviously it's not true that all Nobel laureates are of equal importance! Some obviously had much more impact than others. One of them even achieved superstardom and became "man of the century", while most of them remain largely unknown. Here we cannot judge which of them deserved it etc. We just can report how the Nobel committee expresses its own view of the value of individual contributions by awarding fractional prizes. The official Nobel web site does not say: laureate X got "1/4 of the money". No, it explicitly says: "1/4 of the prize". I cannot understand why we are discussing this - 1/4 of the prize means 1/4 of the prize! X is still a Nobel laureate, of course (nobody is disputing this), but it's also clear that X could have done better. Be assured that everybody in the field, and especially the laureates themselves, are fully aware of the significance of these fractional prizes! Suppose the physics prize goes to 3 researchers, one of them gets 1/2, the others 1/4 each - it's absolutely clear whose contribution was larger in the eyes of the committee! The sum of the Nobel Prizes per year is constant; you may divide it among many laureates, but then the laureates necessarily become less outstanding on average. Science History 12:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Although, the Nobel Prize foundation obviously chooses whether to share prizes at all/ equally or unequally, does this really matter that much to the average reader? I think for a lot of people it perhaps confuses matters too much, without enough explanation, so perhaps a redirect to the relevant section of the Nobel Prize page would be more helpful? It did seem a rather strange thing to have put in there, seeing as the sharing thing is not mentioned on the Pauling or Bardeen pages. It doesn't seem to be consistent across the pages of other Nobel winners either, so maybe this should actually be brought up as a policy issue for the community as a whole to debate, because I think we should be consistent in our treatment of Nobel Prizes across the board.Terri G 18:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree that we should go for consistency - every Nobel Prize winner's page should state how many percent of a Nobel Prize he/she really got. The lists of all laureates should provide this information as well. Science History 12:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Ignoring for a moment the fraction controversy for a moment, there is a disagreement between the text and the photo caption. The text says she was the only person to be awarded the Prize in two different categories. The caption says she is one of a few. I'm not aware of any others but I don't claim to be an authority. In any case, one of these statements is incorrect. --Jeepien 06:54, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Jeepien - she's the only person with Nobels in two areas of science - corrected! Science History 07:48, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


Well, actually, no, it's still out of whack. Now the caption says she's the only person, but the text says she's one of two (the other being Linus Pauling). --Jeepien 00:06, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually both are technically correct. The caption says she's the only one in two fields of science. The text says that she's one of two in two fields. Linus Pauling's second was the Nobel Peace Prize, not a field of science. This is confusing. I'm not sure how to best clear that up. --Siradia 03:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

She was a Polish !!! She must leave Poland becouse Russian was persecuted polish scientist. Many Polish was leav Poland. The polish epic (,,Pan Tadeusz") was wrote in Paris !!! Maria was visit Poland when she can. When Maria was old and Poland was free Maria was prepare for returned to Poland but she was died. I don't now why Maria was bured in Paris, she should bury in Kraków in Wawel when was bured polish king, scientist and poet.

Not just chemist

Madam Curie was more of a physicist than a chemist. I don't understand how she is just a "chemist" given the fact that she studied physics, headed a physics department, and did research on it. That is the reason I added "physicist," to her professional description. --Ur

Shame the first sentence doesn't read well now, I'll try to sort it out but other people should take a look. Terri G 11:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully I've sorted it out, please feel free to check it over though, I'm a scientist, not a writer. Terri G 11:12, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Not 1/3 of a Nobel prize

Note, although Marie Curie's 1903 Nobel Prize was shared between three people, Marie was awarded 1/4 of it, Pierre Curie 1/4 and Antoine Becquerel 1/2. See: The 1903 Physics page on the Nobel Prize website. I reverted the edit by 213.40.3.65

Personaly I'd prefer to see the article talk about two prizes in general and detail the quarter share when talking in detail about the 1903 prize - as the Nobel Prize website does. --SiobhanHansa 13:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Problem with templates at bottom

The two templates at the bottom of the article ({{Nobel Prize in Physics}} and {{Nobel Prize in Chemistry Laureates 1901-1925}}) are closed (whereas on all other pages they are open. I can't seem to fix it -- could someone a bit more knowledgable give it a shot? 24.126.199.129 22:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Phrasing

I've done a bit of rephrasing in the biography section because at least some of it sounded slightly strange, perhaps someone whose first language is not English had added it. There is still one sentence that sounds particularly strange, which I have left in for the moment, as I don't know the truth of the matter.

"After graduating from high school at the top of her class at the age of fifteen, she was depleted of energy and was sent to the countryside to recover."

Apparently this has replaced something that mentions her having a nervous breakdown, which could have been changed due to the negative connotations of having a breakdown, but the replacement text sounds strange and unscientific, and without inline references who knows which is closer to the truth either. Terri G 17:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


1903 Nobel Prize

Although I don't recall the source, I remember reading that the Nobel committee originally nominated Pierre Curie but not Marie. He campaigned for his wife's inclusion in the award because her contribution had been more significant than his own - and her subsequent inclusion entailed a substantial bending of Nobel committee rules. It would reveal more to discuss that in depth than to analyze the "share" of cumulative Nobel prizes she earned. Durova 23:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I looked around online for something supporting this, but couldn't find anything. It seems a bit of a big claim to have happened and not be mentioned on some of the sites that look at how sexism affected MC's career. Has anyone else heard this? Any ideas where we might find a source? --SiobhanHansa 13:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

It certainly wasn't an online source. Ruth Sime's Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics might have a mention of it. I would imagine any dead-tree biography of Curie should describe it also. Durova 02:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I've located two sources. Could someone with a little more time than I have insert this in the article? Durova 15:07, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Naomi Pasachoff, Marie Curie and the Science of Radioactivity (New York:Oxford University Press), 1996, pp. 54-55.
  • Dennis Brian, The Curies: A Biography of the Most Controversial Family in Science, (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons), 2005, pp. 79-80.

Fact changes

It appears there have been some fact changes is the last few days, and I'm not sure which are right, although I suspect they are spurious. The edits I am concerned about are by Kowalmistrz 20:24, 3 September 2006 (changed nationality back to Polish only) and 70.171.211.111 20:02, 3 September 2006 (some material facts changed slightly).

I might leave a note on their pages if I can work out how.Terri G 13:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

The nationality thing is an ongoing issue on this article. If you look further back on the talk page you can see some heavy POV pushing. The (fragile) solution appeared to be to call her Polish - French. But her nationality gets changed a once or twice a week anyway. The other edits you noticed are definately someone playing a game. A quick check easily confirms MC was the first women nobel prize winner, she died in 1934 not 1935, and the mobile radiography units were definitely "little curies" not big ones :-) Well noticed! I'll change it all back -- SiobhanHansa 01:27, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

There is some disagreement over the infobox_scientist template. The template has been nominated for deletion and an IP has replaced it on this page (an numerous others) with the basic bio infobox. I reverted that change and cleaned up some of the problem fields. But I think it's something editors of this page should weigh in on, rather than it be about an infobox war. Personally I'm in favor of the template. I think it provides good summary information in an easy to find format that's makes comparisons with her fellow scientists straight forward and highlights her notability. There are discussions on the template page to slim the number of fields down somewhat and I think that will improve it. If we don't go with this box, I'd prefer to see the article go back to the picture with general description (see here[9]) than the plain bio infobox, which doesn't seem that informative to me. Other thoughts? --SiobhanHansa 14:23, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't disagree more. Those infoboxes not only destroy the layout of the article, but it is superfluous as well. A well written article has that information clearly organized in the text, which makes the box unnecessary.
The problem with wikipedia as I see it that there is a dearth of people who are willing to invest the time and effort to write a really good article. Instead what we get is a collection of boxes and templates, which do not add anything but only distract from the task which is really ahead of us: writing good articles. I have made an effort to write some good articles myself, and nothing is more de-motivating than to see how your best effort is being undone by people who are sticking in those infoboxes.
Yet another thing is that the info in those boxes turns out to be notoriously unreliable. What it shows is that the people who are obsessed by those infoboxes are unwilling to put in the time and effort to verify and double check the information that goes into it. I did correct some of it, but I have given up on it: If I am going to spend time on Wikipedia I should devote that to writing good articles, not to fixing the stupidities of others.
Lastly, and that has really turned me off, is that the infobox addicts often copy/paste whole sections from biographies they find on the internet; that clearly is a copyvio. Once again, what people really should be doing is put in the time and effort to read up to a certain subject, and write a good article from scratch; that is what Wikipedia is all about.
Obviously, I am going to remove that silly infobox again; plese please don't stick it back in again. JdH 15:26, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm a big fan of writing good articles too. But I also see a lot of value in presenting information in ways that are accessible to many different readers with different needs. Since this appears to be your first time on this article, you don't seem to have put much time and effort into developing it. Without community support for the removal of infoboxes in general, your hit and run approach to this article is not particularly cooperative and smacks of the sort of behavior you accuse infobox proponents of. I'm not a fan of edit warring, so I'll be waiting for responses from editors who are involved with the article before I make further edits on the box. --SiobhanHansa 15:59, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

As JdH said. Thew methods presenting information in ways that are accessible to many different readers with different needs are laid out in our policy and guidelines and they don't mention Infoboxes. --Pjacobi 11:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that the extended box is a bad addition, especially to ar article like this which has reasonable content.--Peta 11:49, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Only person to win two Nobel prizes in different fields?

The opening paragraph states "She was a pioneer in the early field of radioactivity, later becoming the first two-time Nobel laureate and the only person with Nobel Prizes in two different fields of science (physics and chemistry)."

However, a quick check of the Nobel Prize#Miscellany section shows that Linus Pauling also won two Nobel prizes in different fields, in chemisty and peace.Severnjc 17:49, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I think you've answered your own question there (if you read the quote carefully), unless you think peace is a science.
"She was a pioneer in the early field of radioactivity, later becoming the first two-time Nobel laureate and the only person with Nobel Prizes in two different fields of science (physics and chemistry)."
The fact you missed it implies it's not as clear as it could be though. Terri G 14:41, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

You are correct. I should have read more closely. Severnjc 05:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Tribute

The image of the 500 French Franc note was ripped (and resized) from the one on my website (http://www.umich.edu/~jbourj/money1.htm) but no acknowledgment is given. (Check the serial number). I do in fact own the copyright of the scanned image and will allow it on this page only if it is given citation. ~Jacob Bourjaily

The "Tribute" section is very much trivia laden. Might that material be incorporated into the broader article?Olin 16:55, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Paragraph

Come on now. Read this and tell me most 12th graders couldn't do better.

'In an unusual move, Curie intentionally did not patent the radium isolation process, instead leaving it open so the scientific community could research unhindered. Just one month after accepting her 1911 Nobel Prize, Marie was hospitalized with depression and kidney trouble. Whenever Marie was feeling especially depressed she took a trip to the country to relax. ' (That was the last sentence of the paragraph)

Cultural depictions of Marie Curie

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 15:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Nationality

I changed the nationality back to Polish-Frnech after someone had mistakenly changed it from Polish to French born, Polish. It had been left at Polish for day, not surprising with so many edits. There seems to have been a strong consensus developed among editor who engage in good faith on the talk page, but the article gets altered frequently. I'm not that clear on why this is such an issue of contention/pride/confusion/whatever. Any ideas on better ways to deal with it? --Siobhan Hansa 04:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)


yeah, the "problem" is, that she was born in Poland, not in France ...

The problem is that you can't say about Curie, that she was a French person! No! She was POLISH (born, grew up, educated). We are talking about her nationality, not her life or work, not about her person at all, as a hitorical great woman, only about a person related with homeland, the people and culture (in the first time of life, childhood, in grewin up). That's the problem! Think about it. Sorry for my English ;). Kowalmistrz 23:00, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

We (I, anyone too?) want to change the Infobox, for only Polish nationality. Not in the article "Polish-French scientist", I agree with that expression ;). She was wroking in France with French scientists, she had a French husband and her children was French since bor (Polish-French not officially ;)). But not nationality, SHE WAS ONLY POLISH. Merry Christmas and good luck :d Kowalmistrz 23:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

She is remembered because she was a great scientist her ethnicity/nationality being irrelevant to most people (that is anybody except Polish nationalists, les patriotes français and nazi everywhere). Was Christopher Columbus Italian or Spanish, Copernicus Polish or German, Napoleon Italian or French, Hitler Austrian or German, Stalin Georgian or Russian? What about somebody who has all 4 grandparents of different ethnicities and is born in a foreign country and lives in yet another country? Do you feel more important because someone happened to speak the same language as you? Get a life! ... Now let's get back to the facts! "Polish-born French chemist" expresses facts clearly enough: she was of Polish origin and she was a scientist in France! "Polish-French" means mixed descent which is wrong! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.120.129.67 (talk) 20:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC).
I like the binational formule as it stands. After all, she was a naturalized French, wasn't she? --Beaumont (@) 11:31, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Does citizenship = nationality?
Did she, as an adult, say anything about her sense of national affiliation?
logologist|Talk 11:57, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, let's look at this. Consider the following.
  • We have polonium, 1898 discovery, an element of her personal fight for independent Poland. Quite telling about her sense of nationality.
  • OTOH, she was a "full" (naturalized) member of the French society, under protection of the French state, with obvoius educational and cultural associations/affiliations and loyalty. See nationality (of course, to some extent this applies to Poland too).
  • Moreover, in general, nationality may also be acquired later in life through naturalization. Clearly, it was the case.
  • Moreover, The legal sense of nationality may often mean citizenship (with some technical differences that do not apply in this case); another citation from nationality. Further, It is largely coterminous with nationality, although it is possible to have a nationality without being a citizen (i.e., be legally subject to a state and entitled to its protection without having rights of political participation in it) (this comes from citizenship). So she was both citizen and national. Arguably, there is no citizenship but nationalité in France. Interestingly, the obywatelstwo entry in the Polish passport is translated (in the very passport) as nationality/nationalité.
  • One may tend to think in terms of the traditional sens of nationality as of the country where one comes from or the native language of the parents (see naturalisation). But then she was naturalized, see naturalization as well. And from another point of view she was Polish-born French scientist, otherwise indistinguishable from the other French.
So I consider this double nationality as a fair presentation. Her connection to Poland is clearly presented too (maybe polonium "naming convention" could be described in more details). Generally, I see no evil in double nationality. And I'm afraid, any "pure" national presentation would not generate more consensus than what we have for the present version. IMHO, no particular action is needed. --Beaumont (@) 14:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

On the top right. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.74.1.27 (talk) 12:45, 3 February 2007 (UTC).


Country of Birth

The first line of the second section states "Born in Russia, partitioned Poland," Warsaw was situated in Congress Poland at the time of her birth. I'll edit this unless someone can show a source that contradicts this. haha

Minor copyedit reverted

Hi. I made a few minor adjustments (gender does not mean quite the same as sex, curium does not need a capital, we don't use Spring xxxx for dates, etc), and was reverted by Logologist. I would never edit-war over such small issues, but I believe my edits unambiguously improved the article. If anyone disagrees, here would be a good place to discuss it. --Guinnog 14:31, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Not having heard to the contrary, I will reinstate my copyedit. --Guinnog 10:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Should have checked first. Thanks, Gwernol, for reinstating my edit. --Guinnog 10:50, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Just call her a chemist and physicist

Why don't you get rid of the revert war by removing her nationality from her contributions to society? Just call her a physicist and chemist. That's basically what the French version of this article does and it works pretty well. Later sentences already say where she was born and how she moved to France. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jonemerson (talk • contribs) 07:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

That may be better than awkwardly calling her "Polish-French" in the lead. Nihil novi 00:10, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Copyvio?

Most of the text seems to have come from here. This is a shocking state for one of our core articles. User:Veesicle 00:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Infobox

Why does the infobox state "polish" for nationality? This is plainly false for a person who held French citizenship and whose remains were put inside the Pantheon (which is btw not mentioned in the article). In my opinion the "nationality" field should say 'French', and the lead should say 'Polish'. This sounds like a good compromise. Miskin 16:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

It should state both in the info box; I believe that is the consensus. I have restored the two flags. --Guinnog 16:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Did she even have a Polish nationality? Miskin 16:51, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
As the article makes clear, this is complicated by the fact that Poland was effectively part of Russia at this time. Calling her Polish/French seems like a fair summation of her nationality. I am less convinced that we need to show the two flags as well; that seems like overkill and begs this question of the complexity of her nationality. --Guinnog 17:07, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I know that's why I asked. The fact remains that she had only French nationality. I'm also of the opinion that she should be credited as Polish, after all she never forgot her Polish origin, but that doesn't justify such anachronistic implications on the infobox. Miskin 18:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I sort of agree with this. Anybody mind if we take down the flags? The Polish flag is anachronistic for Curie anyway. No information would be lost, as we would still call her Polish-French in text. --Guinnog 14:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
By all means dump the flags. But let's not lose sight of the distinction between nationality and citizenship. She was ethnically Polish, but a French citizen (by the way, after November 11, 1918, did she claim Polish citizenship?). I would suggest listing her in the infobox as being of Polish ethnicity, but of French (and Polish?) citizenship. Nihil novi 05:19, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

(deindent) I have removed the flags. It might be worth adding in the body of the article what her actual legal citizenship was at different times, or it might not. Part of my dislike for using flags in infoboxes is that it obscures the complexities and subtleties of something as unusual as Madame Curie's national background. Let the information in text stand for itself; our readers can read. --Guinnog 05:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Some Poles in the 20th century went through half a dozen citizenships in the course of their lives — most of those citizenships, involuntarily — while remaining Poles. Nihil novi 06:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

marie curie

was french?????

Anagram

Should it be included in the article that Marie Curie is an anagram of "Came Radium"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.118.203.33 (talk) 14:27, 22 April 2007 (UTC).

Great idea, but it probably makes sense to add anagrams to featured articles, like George Washington or The Iraq War, before you start adding anagrams everywhere. </sarcasm> Jonemerson 23:53, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Polonium

I don't recall where I read that it was unfortunate that Marie Curie named this particular element "polonium," in view of its short half-life and the metaphorical implications for her native land, if it regained independence. The remark might have been in Eve Curie's biography. But... if this gets deleted, it's no crucial matter. Nihil novi 03:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Atheist

According to [10]:

“ Marie Curie's family religion was Roman Catholic, but she became an anticlerical atheist on the death of her mother and older sister. ”

Note that this section of about.com is not a Wikipedia mirror. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the article's structure to know a good place for this tidbit. Somebody more familiar with it should do it. It's, however, sufficient for keeping Ms. Curie's original classification as an atheist. Digwuren 18:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Just because somethins is not a Wikipedia mirror, hardly makes it an reliable source. I note that the about.com article itself is entirely unsourced, so it seems pointless to use it as a scholarly reference. Surely someone can do better. Hqb 18:24, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I didn't say anything about "just because". Digwuren 19:12, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Try this on for size:

“ Curie is said to have become an agnostic as a teenager and was described variously throughout her life as a rationalist, atheist, and freethinker. "Nothing in life is to be feared" she said. "It is only to be understood." ”

encyclopedia.com's content comes from Columbia Encyclopedia: [11].

Or this, with bibliographical references:

“ Despite her fame as an honored scientist working for France, the public's attitude to the scandal tended towards xenophobia—she was a foreigner, from an unknown land (Poland was still referred to as a geographical area, under the Russian Tsar), an area known to have a significant Jewish population (Marie was an atheist, raised a Catholic, but that didn't seem to matter). ”

Or this, by BBC:

“ Naturally, many scientists over the years have been atheists, including Francis Crick and James Watson, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Linus Pauling and Steven Weinberg. ”

All in all, I'm even surprised it should be disputed to that level. Digwuren 19:12, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what' that's supposed to prove: I can probably find just as many web pages calling her an agnostic. And not exactly from religion-lovers, either:

“ She abandoned her family's Roman Catholicism to become an agnostic as a teenager. ”
“ Marie's father, however, had a strong streak of rationalism in him and this, combined with the death of her mother and one of her sisters from tuberculosis when Marie was only eleven, turned her into an agnostic by the time she was fifteen. ”

According to Freedom From Religion Foundation and British Humanist Association, She became an agnostic as a teenager. After the death of her mother and her eldest sister Zosia, she became an atheist. RS2007 12:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

And the only quote on the topic by Curie herself (that I know of), [12]

“ Pierre belonged to no religion and I did not practice any. ”

hardly makes her sound like an unequivocal atheist.

A credible source of Curie's atheism would be either her own writings, Madame Curie: A Biography (by her daughter), or a similarly well-informed source. Until someone produces such a reference, I don't see how the Wikipedia article can claim her as more than an agnostic. Hqb 20:29, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Concerning Digwuren's sources:
  • About.com exercises little editorial oversight over its "Guides," and the article cited does not declare its sources. Also, the author of the article is a Humanist and Ethical Culturalist (which likely means the author is also an atheist), and this calls the author's impartiality on the matter into question, since members of a particular group tend to be over-eager to claim prominent and well-regarded persons as "one of their own." The article at About.com is not a reliable enough source for us to definitively identify Curie as an atheist.
  • The encyclopedia.com article is not from the Columbia Encyclopedia, but a reprint of an article from The Humanist magazine. The article does not declare its sources and, like the About.com article, its author's impartiality on the matter is questionable. I looked at the actual Columbia Encyclopedia article on Curie, and it said nothing about her atheism.
  • The curiousminds article said that it was "by Wikipedia."
  • h2g2 is a community-created encyclopedia/resource much like Wikipedia. It happens to be hosted by the BBC, but it does not have the same editorial oversight as actual BBC articles. It is unreliable.
The above sources are hardly adequate for identifying Curie as an atheist in a Wikipedia article.
I do not believe we can even say with confidence that Curie was an agnostic. The BHA article does not declare any of its sources. The FFRF article does identify the biography Madame Curie as a source, but only for the statement that Curie and her family were "rationalists." I looked through this biography myself, and found that Curie is described as having lost faith in the God of Catholicism after the death of her sister and her mother. However, nothing I read indicated that she did not believe in a God of some sort. She was certainly irreligious, but she could be a deist, an atheist, an agnostic, or a dystheist. None of what I've read so far settles the question definitively. Nick Graves 15:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, well, Mr Graves, how can you say that the author of the article is 'likely an atheist'?? The author of the article is a Humanist and Ethical Culturalist. The author could also be a religious believer. A humanist can also be a believer. Can we call Murray Gell-Mann an atheist? He is a humanist. Mr. Garves, don't you know that we shouldn't be in the business of calling people atheists when they might reject that label for themselves?? Tell me, which source is a reliable source?? About.com is a reliable source. And, I have no doubt in my mind that Marie Curie was an atheist. RS2007 08:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Most Humanists and Ethical Culturalists are atheists. I never said I knew for sure that the author of the about.com article was an atheist. Besides, whether or not the author is an atheist does not change the fact that about.com exercises little editorial oversight over its articles, and that the author of the article does not cite any of her sources for the claim that Curie was an atheist. That makes the about.com article an unreliable source by Wikipedia standards. The Book Rags source is unreliable for the same reason, plus it is anonymously authored. Book Rags is a pay site that provides boiler plates for high school students who are too lazy to research their essays or papers properly. That's not the quality of source I want to rely on for a Wikipedia article--do you? I'd be more than happy to count Curie as an atheist, but only if that claim can be backed up by a reputably published biography, or by her own words (something to the effect of "I am an atheist," or "God does not exist."). Nick Graves 15:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I've hunted a trail down to "Marie Curie. Notable Twentieth-Century Scientists. Gale Research, 1995.", which, alas, I don't have access to. Can anybody check that it pronounces Curie an "avowed atheist"? Digwuren 13:17, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Nick, if you want to say something, please go to my talk page. Please don't write anything irrelevant here. I have found two reliable source which suggest that Marie Curie was an atheist[13][14]. RS2007 12:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I said nothing irrelevant here. This is a discussion of the Marie Curie article, and a discussion about whether or not she was an atheist belongs here. Nick Graves 15:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Cool! There is no strong proof that Marie Curie was an atheist. However, it is quite clear that she was irreligious. RS2007 11:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, here's a passage from the 352-page biography "Marie Curie" by Robert Reid, 1974, page 19:

“ It was this unnecessarily drawn out event [i.e., the customarily long period of mourning following her mother's death] which caused the rationalism she had learnt from her father to conflict with the mysticism to which her mother had introduced her. Maria was unable to understand logically what it was that had so deeply touched and influenced her mother. The death, she now saw, was making her father a prematurely old man. The wasteful effects of the tragedy finally tipped the scales. Religion lost. Three or four years later she rejected it completely. Unusually at such an early age, she became what T. H. Huxley had just invented a word for: agnostic. She had taken a step which led her more easily in the direction of science. ”

Moreover, nowhere in the book does Reid refer to her as an atheist; in fact, on the occasion of her civil marriage to Pierre, he calls her a "lapsed Catholic".

Based on this, I'm putting back the article's assertion that she was an agnostic, until someone can find even stronger contradicting evidence. Note that many casual biographies (even from reputable sources) don't really distinguish precisely between agnosticism and atheism, so any references about her adhering to the latter need to be very specific about which term they use, not merely say "Religion: Atheist", or similar. Hqb 16:01, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for finding that source. I have added her to the List of agnostics. Nick Graves 17:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

All the Marie Curie schools

I would guess there may be dozens of elementary and secondary schools in the world that have been named in honor of Marie Curie or Maria Skłodowska-Curie. If that is so, is there need to mention any of them in the article's "Tribute" section? Nihil novi 19:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Suggested Edit

The sentence "Eventually they studied radioactive materials, particularly pitchblende — the ore from which uranium was extracted — which had the curious property of being more radioactive than the uranium extracted from it." is repetitive. I suggest removing the inset text as the following is a superset of that information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.203.188.80 (talk) 23:33, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Great suggestion. Please make any adjustments you deem appropriate. Nihil novi 02:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Is she Polish or French?

I am Asian but a great admirer of Dr. Curie who has inspired many women, around the world, to enter the field of science, and have the confidence to succeed in academics.

I think Dr. Curie must have been upset at the way her desire to enter a university in Poland was rejected because she was a woman, and she was Polish (by ethnicity) under the rule of Russians. She remained a proud Pole. It was lack of opportunity in her home country (sexism and foreign occupation) that forced her to leave for France to study.

The fact that she had been rejected by the French academy for funds and recognition for many years, and that support and fame only came much later (and always with some French association) does represent some narrow "nationalism" and "xenophobia" on the part of the French (both the public and the elites)in the 1800s and early 1900s. I do believe the French regretted this part of their history. But naming a bank note, a research institue and many prestigeous awards after this brilliant woman only years after her amazing breakthroughs reek of "claim to national identity and honor only after unique achievements". If Madam Curie was not as "great" as she was - would the French even consider her great- great grand children really "French"?

Think of the treatment of many third generation French Algerians even today. Many are still considered, or labeled, by the French as "Algerians" though they and their parents may have been born and raised in France all their lives.

Mother Teresa, a wonderful woman who served Indians and embraced India, is perceived by many Indians (and officially) as "an Indian of Albanian descent". And Mother Teresa did not mind being seen this way though she got her Indian citizenship very late in her life. In Albania she is seen as "an Albanian Indian" or "an Albanian who has lived most of her life in India". India embraced her with warmth, pride and gratitude even before she became world famous and won her Nobel Prize. That was not the case with Mania Sklodowska-Curie. People still associate her with her husband (Pierre Curie) mostly - lot of French still do. That is not fair to her - nor fair to women scientists around the world who want individual credit for their own achievements.

Marie (or Mania)Sklodowska lived twenty five years after her husband's untimely death. She loved him, was proud of him and devoted to him - but one cannot deny her own individual brilliance and achievements. If she were born today her husband might be known as Dr. Pierre Sklodowska. :))

Madam Curie should be remembered as Mania (or Marie) Sklodowska-Curie. Access to her biography in Wikipedia and other internet sources should be available under all her three names: Mania Sklodowska, Marie Sklodowska-Curie and Madam Curie.

France was lucky to have such a woman - and her ancestry should not be ignored or belittled. But the French are proud of her now - but France and the French Science Academy were not always nice or fair to her when was there struggling for support and acceptance. That is why she was grateful to Pierre who fought for her against rejection and prejudice (that any science community would be ashamed of today).

It is interesting how many people don't even know she is Polish. If she was a "nobody" she might have been forced to stay Polish all her life. Let us not diminish the contribution of her country, her ethnicity and her personal history. The French have the right to be proud of her and their wonderful recognition of her achievements later - but they should not dismiss the past which was not always fair or good to Dr. Sklodowska-Curie

Biographies must remain true to facts - but they must also be honest about how cultural priorities, politics, and prejudice of the past have affected people from Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin and South America in Europe.

I'd also like the information on her so-called affair with Paul ---- be deleted. It is unnecessary and reeks of sexism and juvenile fascination with boobs and sex - that seems to dominate some geeks and nerds on the internet.

Acute sexism and prejudice towards women scientists, and women intellectuals, are still apparent in many of these discussions. Is it male jealousy, fear of women's sexuality, hatred of women's sexuality or some kind of juvenile need to make women scientists into "asexual nuns" who sacrifice a great deal and live their entire lives in isolation with narrow devotion? Does it make the men feel good to have these images?

I am a woman intellectual and I have been in the academe for years. I love to dress up, drink and dance - a lot! Men have said I am sexy and when I was single I liked to bed men (mostly single like me), though many were intimidated by my intellectual and sexual passion.

This notion that all intellectuals are alike and all intellectual women are asexual, or nunnish - or should be - is absurd and unfair. Dr. Sklodowska did not sleep with her students or many men in her department - which would have been more scandalous those days. Want to know the number of male faculty (including senior ones) who sleep/date/and even marry their young female doctoral students? Why is that not news? All these are only speculations and unnecessary to her greatness.

If you ask me, I hope she did have affairs to: forget her one true love "Pierre"; to find some comfort in the demanding competative lonely world of science research; and to feel like a woman (in a world surrounded by male geeks and nerds).

Can more women write on these forums please? Thank you!

Best wishes

68.205.151.197 05:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Dr. M. S68.205.151.197 05:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the gist of the above. As to her name, she is known to her Polish compatriots as Maria Skłodowska-Curie. If she ever was called "Mania," that would have been a nickname, and nobody in Poland calls her that today. I would argue that it is demeaning to her memory to call her by such a nickname (which additionally carries the same psychiatric sense in both Polish and English).
As to the Paul Langevin-scandal story, I have no objection to skipping it – unless one wishes to retain it as illustrating the discrimination to which she was subjected. Nihil novi 08:36, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


Many wrong facts being stated here. No matter the reason, Marie Curie has decided to become a French citizen, and ignoring the fact she's French in this article would be nothing else than blatant discrimination to me. Despite having also made his whole carreer in France, Frédéric Chopin decided to not naturalize, thus he should be, and actually is, remembered as Polish.

The French citizenship has never been based on blood. Historically speaking, the French citizenship has never meant anything else than being recognized as a member of the same and unique French community. One should know that France is a very diverse country, where no French ethnicity actually exists. Indeed France is made of various regions being strongly different culturally speaking to one another, and on top of that, France has known two centuries of mass immigration. And this at such a scale that nowadays, between a third and a half of the French population has foreign roots.

If French people consider Marie Curie as French, it's because she was. And there's nothing which infuriates more French people, especially me, than those who question the legitimacy of the citizenship of members of the community, no matter if they are famous scientists or industrial workers. At the opposite of what you say, she didn't become French because she was famous, she became French in the same way than hundreds of thousands of Polish migrants in France. I repeat again that no country in Europe has known immigration at the same scale and during such a long time as France did. In the 1930's, there was a larger proportion of immigrants in the French population than in the US population.

All this to say that this dispute about Marie Curie's citizenship blatantly prove a severe lack of knowledge of what means being French. It's not a matter of blood, it's not a matter of accent, it's about being part of a same community and sharing a common destiny. This of course doesn't mean that French people are all perfect and that racism doesn't exist in France, I simply explain things as they have been for centuries. Marie Curie is as French as were Léon Gambetta, Joséphine Baker, Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, Zinedine Zidane, Michel Platini, Nicolas Sarkozy, Jean-Jacques Rousseau or La Fayette, which means she was 100% French. And this no matter how strong her Polish bonds ; no one has the right to steal her from her French citizenship. Metropolitan 18:00, 25 November 2007 (UTC).

Does this article deny Maria Skłodowska-Curie's French citizenship or her having belonged to the French community? Is it impossible to have, in Josephine Baker's words, "two loves"? Skłodowska-Curie belonged to both communities, as have many Poles, and perhaps more to the point, she belonged and belongs to the world.
Nevertheless, she could not help feeling a special concern for the country of her origin, which had for a century been deprived of its right to independent existence. And it was for this reason that she named the first element that she discovered "polonium," rather than "francium," which would be discovered and named, by Marguerite Perey, only 41 years later, in 1939.
Incidentally, Marguerite Perey was, in 1962, the first woman to be elected to the French Académie des Sciences. Pierre Curie had been elected a member in 1905. Maria Skłodowska-Curie had, by one vote, been denied membership in that body. Nihil novi (talk) 22:07, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Glaring omission: Marie Curie's science!

Why is there so little discussion of Marie Curie's actual science on this page? Compare with Pierre Curie's. Compare with ANY Nobel prize winner's. Though probably unintentional, this looks to me like typical scientific chauvinism. Come on, let's aim higher than a People magazine style biography.

Before you launch personal attacks, this is coming from a man, by the way.

71.240.88.128 09:14, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Element curium= Ci?

There seems to be a shortcut error referring to the element "curium". It has to be Cm, not Ci!

Quotation from the main article: The curie (symbol Ci), a unit of radioactivity, is named in their honour, as is the element with atomic number 96 - curium.

--Ahem--

Ci is the unit of radioactivity. Cm is the element. In the quote it is the unit of radioactivity. --Anon126 00:12, 23 December 2007 (UTC)