HISTORY OF PHYSICS NEWSLETTER
Volume VI Number 5 -- October 1996
OPINION: "In Praise of Pierre and Marie Curie" Editor's Note: On April 20, 1995, the remains of Pierre and Marie Curie were reintered in the Pantheon in Paris in the presence of an audience which included President Lech Walesa of Poland and a distinguished group of French scientists. On that occasion Fran?ois Mitterand, on what was to be his last public appearance as President of France, made extended remarks. Excerpts of a translation of these remarks by William Evenson, Physics Department, Brigham Young University, follow. An electronic version of the complete text of Evenson's translation may be obtained by request from the editor of the Newsletter:
wblanpied@nsf.gov.
"By transferring these ashes of Pierre and Marie Curie into the sanctuary of our collective memory, France not only performs an act of recognition, it also affirms a faith in science, in research, and its respect for those who dedicate themselves to science, just as Pierre and Marie Curie dedicated their energies and their lives to science."
"Today's ceremony is of particular significance because it marks the entry into the Pantheon of the first woman in our history honored for her own accomplishments."
. . . . "As you know, Mr. President of Poland, Marie Curie's struggle began in your country. One could not comprehend the course of such a life, so many obstacles surmounted, without making reference to this land so close to ours through history and in feeling, so torn through the ages between the powers that wished to subjugate it, where character is steeped in a thousand-year tradition of unbreakable resistance."
"From her childhood, Marie Sklodovska resisted: against the humiliations of foreign powers, against her 'difficult nature that has to be conquered,' as she said herself, against the limitations of women's roles, against dogmas of all kinds which attempted to restrict her. She desired to control her own life and to pursue her own destiny. And for such a task she had all the needed qualities."
"She was thus a Polish patriot girl. As President Lech Walesa has just suggested, to pursue her studies during those times and in those conditions, it was necessary to leave. The passion to understand, the faith in the possibility of progress that possessed Marie Curie had a name in her family: the Sorbonne. Marie could not conceive of perfecting her knowledge elsewhere."
. . . . "The knowledge acquired in the study of the natural radioactive elements directed the evolution of atomic theory. And on yet another track the work of Pierre and Marie Curie led to developments of great importance: that of therapeutic applications and the use of radioactive materials in biology."
"Since 1910 gamma rays from radium have been used in what is called 'curietherapy' or radiation therapy. This therapy took on such great importance that it was necessary to add a department of medical applications to the Radium Institute. Thus was born in 1920 the Curie Foundation. For Marie the benefits of irradiation to cancer patients were the crowning accomplishment of her research."
"Such were the landmarks of these two lives that nothing in the memory of posterity has tarnished. We admire the brilliance of their creations which are the very epitome of the impact of the human spirit in history. In their work are united the fields of physics, chemistry, and biology. In it the great secrets of matter and life come together, secrets whose exploration would remake our world."
"The layman, often, remembers nothing of the great scientists beyond the most popular of their discoveries, such as the isolation of radium. But the work of Pierre and Marie Curie continues. Its fruitfulness has not diminished. It has built, little by little, the foundation from which atomic physics and molecular biology take their flight."
"We admire also the common virtues of these two persons, too soon separated: their ardor and enthusiasm, their obstinacy in work, their rigor and moderation in all things, their taste for contemplation and the strength of solitude. One characteristic brings them together more than any other: disinterestedness, which is, in their eyes, the foundation of all scientific ethics."
"But there is another example that has the attention of the nation this evening and which I have the honor to put into words for you: that of the remarkable battle of a woman who decided to assert her abilities in a society that too often reserved intellectual functions and public responsibilities to men."
. . . . "In 1933 Marie Curie presided at Madrid over a meeting of leaders of many disciplines on the subject The Future of Culture. 'I am,' she declared, 'among those who think that science has great beauty. I do not believe that in our world the spirit of adventure is at risk of disappearing. If I see around me something vital, it is precisely this spirit of adventure which seems to me impossible to uproot and is tied to curiosity.'"
"Without curiosity of mind, what would we be? Such is the beauty and the nobility of science: endless desire to push back the frontiers of knowledge, to follow the secrets of matter and of life without a preconceived idea of the eventual results. Pasteur stated the rule: 'Encourage scientific disinterestedness because it is a living well of progress in theory, from whose application arises all progress.'"
"Let us respect this rule. There is no scientific progress if one shackles that which moves it, if one bridles this curiosity from which everything develops."
. . . . "Listen again to Pierre Curie when he received the Nobel prize: 'One can conceive,' he said, 'that in criminal hands radium could become very dangerous, and one could ask whether humanity is benefited by knowing the secrets of nature. I am among those who think that humanity will draw more good than bad from these discoveries.'"
"There is in this confidence, as in all hope, a portion of desire and a portion of dream. Without such confidence, there can be no advance of the mind. And if other paths could be followed to moderate human pain, where has anyone shown that we can afford to deprive ourselves of this one?"
"One day, you know, Earth will no longer be the center of the universe. Today biology is beginning to be able to change the individual in his very being, in the intimacy of his genes and of his brain. Must we reject science for all this even while we keep a clear view of the immense dangers which menace this advance of knowledge?"
"The destiny of civilizations is not to mistrust the knowledge of things, but to master it. The refusal of knowledge, the fear of creative thought, belong, I am certain, to dead societies."
"The struggle of science is that of reason against the forces of obscurity, it is the struggle of freedom of the mind against the slavery of ignorance. Yes, freedom, even if at times the discoveries of science can be misdirected to destroy life. Liberty grows when suffering is alleviated; liberty grows when the material and spiritual dependencies that shackle the capacity of humans to choose their own destiny are reduced."
"Therefore, I thank you in the name of the nation as we thank Pierre and Marie Curie. I have waited long for this day when we could add such illustrious ashes to the Pantheon of our glories. I would have felt as if in debt to the country if I had not been able, before leaving my present responsibilities, to add here the names of Pierre and Marie Curie who represent in the memory of their peoples the beauty of the quest even at the cost of self sacrifice. Through these two names, which unite two peoples in friendship, the Republic pays deserved homage to all the servants of science, many of whom are here. Because they bear witness to one of the brightest powers of humanity, the thirst to know and the desire to create."
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