The Curies
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the scientific achievements of the Curie family. In 1903 Marie and Pierre Curie shared a Nobel Prize in Physics with Henri Becquerel for their work on radioactivity, a term which Marie coined. Marie went on to win a Nobel in Chemistry eight years later; remarkably, her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie would later share a Nobel with her husband Frederic Joliot-Curie for their discovery that it was possible to create radioactive materials in the laboratory. The work of the Curies added immensely to our knowledge of fundamental physics and paved the way for modern treatments for cancer and other illnesses.
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Guests
- Patricia Fara
17 episodes
Senior Tutor of Clare College, University of Cambridge -
Robert Fox No other episodes
Emeritus Professor of the History of Science at the University of Oxford -
Steven T Bramwell No other episodes
Professor of Physics and former Professor of Chemistry at University College London
Reading list
-
The Curies: A Biography of the Most Controversial Family in Science
Denis Brian (John Wiley & Sons, 2005) Google Books → -
Madame Curie
Eve Curie (trans. Vincent Sheean) (First published 1938; Style Press, 2007) Google Books → -
Pierre Curie
Marie Curie (First published 1923; Dover Publications, 2012) Google Books → -
Curie (Life & Times)
Sarah Dry (Haus Publishing, 2003) Google Books → -
Marie Curie and Her Daughters: The Private Lives of Science's First Family
Shelley Emling (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) Google Books → -
Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie
Barbara Goldsmith (W. W. Norton, 2005) Google Books → -
Frederic Joliot-Curie: A Biography
Maurice Goldsmith (Lawrence and Wishart, 1976) Google Books → -
Marie Curie: A Life
Susan Quinn (Heinemann, 1995) Google Books → -
Marie Curie
Robert William Reid (Collins, 1974) Google Books → -
Marie & Pierre Curie
John Senior (Sutton Publishing, 1998) Google Books →
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Programme ID: b05n1dmt
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05n1dmt
Auto-category: 540 (Chemistry and allied sciences)
Hello (First sentence from this episode)
Hello. In 1903, thanks to her work on radioactivity, Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, sharing it with her husband Pierre and with Henry Becquerel.