wisdom to win

 Wisdom to Win
search bar left
search bar right
 

Marie Curie - Creativity and ScienceMarie Curie - Creativity and Science

 

Marie Curie (1867-1934)

 

Polish-born French physicist (pictured right c1920), famous for her work on radioactivity which led to:

  • nuclear power. 
  • radiotherapy for cancer treatment. Marie Curie - Creativity and Science

The only woman to win two Nobel Prizes for

  • physics in 1903 (with her husband, Pierre Curie, pictured right, and Henri Berquerel)
  • chemistry in 1911.

 

Why was she so creative?

 Marie Curie - Creativity and Science

1. Talent

Marie (pictured right in 1903) graduated top of her physics class at the Sorbonne, one the world’s top universities in Paris.

She had a

  • fantastic memory
  • wonderfully inventive mind.

 

2. Hard work and determination

She worked incredibly hard and was determined to succeed

“ I never seen what has been done; I only see what remains to be done”, she said.

Marie overcame several problems:

 Marie Curie - Creativity and Science

a) male domination

In a male dominated world, it was extremely difficult to make a career in science.

They didn’t want to give her the first Nobel Prize, but Pierre insisted (pictured together around the time they received the prize).

 

b) Pierre's death

Pierre was killed by a horse-drawn carriage in 1906.

 

c) persistent failure and difficulty

She and Pierre spent four years (1898- 1902) finding radium in an old shed, which was:

  • boiling hot in summer. 
  • freezing cold in winter. 
  • filled with horrible gases.

She managed to extract radium from tons of pitchblende (an ore from which uranium was also extracted).

This was extremely difficult, because the amount of radium was so tiny.

Four years work only produced a decigram of radium!

 Marie Curie - Creativity and Science

3. Fun and relaxation

She loved her work and seeing radium for the first time, glowing in the dark, was a magical moment she never forgot.

Her happiest times were living and working with Pierre, bicycling together in the country and looking after her children, Irène and Ève (pictured right with Irène)

Helped by a nurse and her father-in-law, she managed with great will and determination to:

  • balance work and family. 
  • make sure her work didn’t harm her children’s development.

 

4. Teamwork

Pierre and Marie  were a great team, complementing and encouraging each other.

Pierre was a great visionary, whilst Marie turned his dreams into reality with great skill and determination.

 Marie Curie - Creativity and Science

5. Challenging purpose

The usefulness of her research gave her something worthwhile to work for.

Money wasn’t important to her.

She and Pierre (pictured right in their laboratory):

  • agreed not to profit from their discovery of radium and refused to patent it.
  • freely shared information about radium to achieve their only aim (to increase knowledge).

She loved learning but hated fame.

Her motto was

“In science, we must be interested in things, not persons” ..Marie Curie - Creativity and Science

 

6. Adventurous risk taker

Marie:

  • loved working on radioactivity (because it was new and exciting, having only just been discovered by another French scientist, Henri Becquerel, pictured right).
  • always chose the difficult option (even though there was a high risk of failure). Marie Curie - Creativity and Science
  • had the “curiosity and daring of an explorer”, her daughter, Ève, pictured right, said, which is why Marie loved laboratory work.

She was unaware of the dangers of radioactivity and the consequent leukaemia killed her.

 

7. Challenged the status quo

She was always prepared to challenge existing knowledge., even if it offended people in authority.

For example, her discoveries about radioactivity were revolutionary and made some scientific knowledge obsolete.


 

8. Thoroughness

She tested all known chemical substances to find out which of them were radioactive.

Uranium was already known to be so, but her thoroughness discovered two new ones, radium and polonium.

She read Becquerel’s work on radioactivity carefully to learn as much as possible from it.

 

9. Lifelong learningMarie Curie - Creativity and Science

Marie:

  • followed the example of her teacher parents (who loved learning) - Marie is pictured on the left with her father and two of her sisters in 1890). 
  • never stopped learning. 
  • seized every opportunity to improve her knowledge.
  • loved science (because it had “great beauty”, she said).

 

Key quotes on creativity

When radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals...And this is proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it.

We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves”.

Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.

 

Key quote on success

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done. Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

 

Key quote on business ethics

Each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity.

 

Key quote on science

In science, we must be interested in things, not persons

 

Key quote on change

The way of progress is neither swift nor easy.

 

Key quote on society

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.

Free Newsletter
Enter your name and e-mail address to receive our free newsletter with analysis of business issues and new business books

Quotes