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Comment by hartpuff | Hacker News Reader

> every single person I asked what nationality she was said "uhm..........French?

Well French isn't a bad guess, is it, considering she moved to France, married a Frenchman, became a French citizen, took his French name and probably spent most of her life in France?

Ask people what nationality Einstein was and many will say American, despite his German name, which is also not necessarily incorrect.

That doesn't change the fact that most people who learn about Curie or Einstein at school probably learn about their origin. That people don't remember everything they learn at school isn't particularly remarkable.

As for polonium, it's practically a pub quiz question who invented it and why it's so named.

> the Polish part of her surname is omitted from nearly every mention of her I saw over here so far.

Where her Polish name is being "omitted" I suspect it's more for reasons of simplicity than any 'Western' conspiracy to keep Poland down.

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> Well French isn't a bad guess, is it, considering she moved to France, married a Frenchman, became a French citizen, took his French name and probably spent most of her life in France?

You make it sounds like she did it out of choice, like someone who would take a nationality out of kinship, but the reason why she moved to France have little to do with French sympathies but more prosaic reasons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_curie#Early_years

> After Russian authorities [Poland was partly controlled by Russia at the time] eliminated laboratory instruction from the Polish schools, he [MC's Father] brought much of the laboratory equipment home, and instructed his children in its use.[11]

> Unable to enroll in a regular institution of higher education because she was a woman, she and her sister Bronisława became involved with the clandestine Flying University, a Polish patriotic institution of higher learning that admitted women students.[10][11]

> Maria made an agreement with her sister, Bronisława, that she would give her financial assistance during Bronisława's medical studies in Paris, in exchange for similar assistance two years later.

Also, as per wikipedia:

> While a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Curie (she used both surnames)[6][7] never lost her sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland.[8] She named the first chemical element that she discovered‍—‌polonium, which she isolated in 1898‍—‌after her native country.[a]

That's interesting, but I wasn't making any insinuation about why she became French. I was simply giving reasons why "French" wasn't an unreasonable guess for people to make.

I never said anything about any conspiracy, I just said that the fact that her Polish surname isn't mentioned is similar to how the Polish origins of the Enigma work are hardly ever mentioned. Sure, most people who read anything about the subject will know it, but it is not common knowledge.

Is there any reason why it should be common knowledge where Marie Curie was born? Is it common knowledge in Poland where, for example, Alexander Graham Bell was born?

Objectively it's hardly the most interesting or significant fact about her, is it?

As for Enigma, as others have also stated, it's virtually impossible to have heard of it without hearing about the Polish involvement, to the point where it almost seems like the British role is being denigrated.

Here's a story from 2012, for example, on a previous occasion where Poland was repeating the story that's "hardly never mentioned":

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2215003/Secrets-Enig...

     But now [4 years ago], the Polish Government has launched
     a campaign to highlight the important - and overlooked - 
     role played by its nation in solving the Enigma code.

No wonder people were checking the date on this submission.

And a brief Google on BBC site alone produces these headlines and stories:

     2014  Poland's overlooked Enigma codebreakers
           http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28167071

     2011  Bletchley Park remembers Polish code breakers
           bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-14141406

     2009  How Poles cracked Nazi Enigma secret
           http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8158782.stm

     2000  UK gives Enigma machine to Poles
           http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/930873.stm

I'm not sure I'm conveying my point here clearly. I feel almost upset that the Polish part of her surname is omitted pretty much everywhere but Poland, since that is something that to herself was of great value, for reasons brought up by other commenters. Not adding it feels like it almost insults what she believed in, and strips her legacy to bare scientific achievements.

I don't know how else to describe it, maybe if Alexander Graham Bell had another surname, say French or German, and people everywhere were using that instead, without ever mentioning Bell? Would that be an understandable example then?

My guess is that it's because "Curie" is a lot easier for an English-speaker to type and pronounce than "Skłodowska". I don't even have one of those characters on my keyboard -- I had to copy-paste from above.

Not only that but people unfamiliar with Polish names would not necessarily assume Sklodowska is Polish anyway.

It sounds like she is known or remembered in Poland for her science and for her nationalism then. Outside of Poland, her Polish nationalism is obviously going to be less important/relevant than her contribution to science.

>I don't know how else to describe it, maybe if Alexander Graham Bell had another surname, say French or German, and people everywhere were using that instead, without ever mentioning Bell? Would that be an understandable example then?

I think I would understand more if she had never used the name Marie Curie, or even rejected it at any point in her life (did she?) and was simply called that by other people. If she herself used and was happy with the name "Marie Curie" though, and AFAIK she was, I don't see what the issue is with her being known by that name.

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