Women Crowdfunded Radium For Marie Curie | Hacker News Reader

Women Crowdfunded Radium For Marie Curie

smithsonianmag.com

104 pointsomarchowdhury38 comments

Oh no, another thread that will bring the nationalists out (see the hundreds of Wikipedia fights about nationality and naming of famous people). The Wikipedia page of Curie had it's share.

As if it is important from what nation a person is who gifted humanity with a piece of art, an invention or scientific breakthrough. I wonder why people are so eager to associate their nation with the results of individuals. I never felt the urge or understood the reasoning.

I agree with your sentiment, generally speaking. It derives from needing to pull pride from another thing through self-selected association. It's the same thing that sports fans do when their preferred team wins a championship. You see all sorts of weird permutations of this concept in action. When NASA or SpaceX does something, it's said to be an accomplishment for all of humanity, people around the world want a piece of that pride, to be part of a great thing.

It's a component of tribalism (and neither inherently positive nor negative), probably deeply wired into humanity. It also happens around race, religion, politics and ideology broadly.

Why? Well, the answer is a mixed bag of positives and negatives. It's the same reason people obsess over celebrities (tabloids, fan groups, and so on). Their own lives are not very interesting, they lack/yearn for accomplishment, so they desperately seek to fill voids via the things they take an interest in, trying to grab hold of accomplishment elsewhere, slice off a tiny bit of that for themselves through distant association. It's why nations culturally revel in their historical accomplishments, even if they were 2,000 years ago. On the positive side, it probably helps create bonds between people socially, culturally, and is likely a requirement for the formation and sustainment of civilization (drawing pride from a thing, allocates self-interest in supporting/protecting the thing).

There is no single answer for this but I believe it also helps promote better systems(political/economical). It's obvious that a gifted person without support from the environment can achieve very little. Think of what Steve Jobs would have achieved if he was to be born and raised in Syria. Not much I would say.

Therefore I believe it's right for people to pull pride from someone's else work through association. You (would) have no SpaceX without the US capitalist system.

When NASA or SpaceX does something, it's an accomplishment of the very people working there, then of the people who supported them and not least of all the humanity. It'a like winning a war. It's not only the people that fight in the front lines that matter. It's a whole system.

I think Budha achieved a lot.

It's important for two reasons.

First, it's just a precautionary measure. Every once in a while I have to remind my children that USA is not the only great country in the world. Other countries have also fought for their land, produced great artists and scientists and usually have quite an interesting history.

Second, putting my scientific hat on, if some country has much more/less scientists than another, then at least the fact should be noted and reflected upon.

It is then odd that the majority of scientists have rejected nationalism for as long as nations existed.

I agree. Germany has lost scientists in three waves. First those who fled the Nazi regime, then those killed by the Nazi regime, then those trading their crimes for a future in the US or Soviet Russia afterwards. Then no one was left.
I disagree with the concept of "Other countries have produced great artists" though.

Assume the discussion about the difference or non-difference of the regime and the people here.

It is kind of sad you have to actually remind your kids about that, don't you think?

Balanced, objective education system would have no problem learning kids exactly that, but in many places that's a pipe dream. And US is surprisingly, at least in some aspects, one of those places.

I always felt like it was the only thing people could relate to. "Wow, we're from the same place, see we are (better,best,number1)" vs actually contributing to their own nation.

But, I also think being proud of the country you're/belong to in isn't a bad thing either.

So fun stuff.

Individuals don't exist in isolation. When you are associating results of individuals with a nation you are acknowledging that the farmer, the truck driver, the grocery store employee, the construction workers, etc all contributed their part to society that enabled the result of that individual.

This article is associating the success of Marie Curie with the group of women that supported her directly. Nations are just large groups of people.

When an individual claims to have done everything on his own it reeks of narcissism. A lot of wealthy people never talk about the support they have received and claim their individuality to be the sole reason of success even when their wealth was built on the backs of millions.

Scared of non ASCII characters? ;) It's Maria Skłodowska-Curie

This is kinda of sad, because wikipedia has her page titled as Marie Curie too. It is a bit ironic imo, because poles are very proud of her and yet at the time the country failed her, by not giving the possibility of attending university.

> the country failed her, by not giving the possibility of attending university

The country didn't exist at the time, being partitioned between Prussia, Russia and Austria-Hungary. Poles didn't have much to say about the university admission policies of the Russian Empire, where she lived. She did, however, attend the so called Flying University [1], which was a higher education institution organized by Polish underground resistance.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_University

You're obviously right, forgot that I have to check if my country existed in a given time.

Seems like wikipedia decided that they preferred to use the name she is most commonly known by in english sources. I found an old discussion about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Marie_Curie/Archive_2#Req...

In history and pop-culture she's known as Marie Curie.

Heck, she event has a SI unit named after her, the Curie.

Time to change that, then. She insisted on using both surnames and strongly emphasized her Polish roots throughout her life. Erasing her Polish maiden name clashes with her wishes and is only possible, because due to historical circumstances Poland had very limited impact on global popular culture.

>strongly emphasized her Polish roots throughout her life

and named the first element she discovered - Polonium - after her homeland.

And in Russian space she is Мария Склодовская-Кюри (Maria Skłodowska-Curie) too (that was on her portrait in our chemistry class back in 198x for example).

1. Wikipedia states: "according to a notice in Nature at the time, it was named in honour of Pierre Curie, but was considered at least by some to be in honour of Marie Curie as well."

2. The Curie isn't an SI unit, the Becquerel (Bq) is.

Not in polish history nor pop culture. Given that she insisted on using both it is kind of disrespectful to her.

Her signature was apparently more often than not M. Curie.

https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soubor:Marie_Curie_signature.s...

The nobel prize of 1903 refers to her as "Marie Curie, née Sklodowska", meaning that Sklodowska is her maid name but not her name after marriage in French.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1903/summary/

Yes, it means it's her maiden name, but née just translates as born. It was her birth name.

Yeah, and it's typically how it is said in French: it refers to your name at birth, which is not current anymore.

I would be very interested in knowing where did that radium come from? How was it produced at the time? The article says president Warren presented her with 1g of the element - how was it secured, in such a small quantity? Did she bring it back with her just in her purse? So many questions.

Processing uranium ore by the ton, a few grams per ton!

Yes, she did bring it back in her purse. As well she would keep a vial as a pocket toy to show off at parties (it ionizes the air and glows blue).

Her textbooks are still very radioactive.

She isolated radium from (many tons of) Uranitite, which was donated by Austrian goverment. This was waste byproduct of mines in Jáchymov (today in Czech republic).

See https://web.archive.org/web/20170704193910/http://history.ai...

Ah yes, the favorite place of Communism regime to dispose of unwanted citizens, instead of just hanging them.

It was usually a death sentence, be it for uranium ore, brutality of the guards or inhumane conditions. Crimes varied, often political opponents of hardline communists (including less radical ones), or being in domestic/foreign resistance against nacism during WWII.

Quite a few folks who fought for allies ie pilots in Battle of Britain, went home as heroes and ended up there. Sad times

"An assessment of the gender imbalance based on full counting, which does not account for prize share, reveals that women have received 3.29% of the 607 Nobel medals awarded since 1901. But an analysis based on fractional counting, which considers prize share, finds that only 2.77% of the 331 science prizes have gone to women."

https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/the-nobel-gender-gap-i...

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