WEBVTT - What Family Has Won the Most Nobel Prizes? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.960 Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff. 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:11.520 Lauren Vogelbaum here. When Marie Kerrey and her husband Pierre 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.120 won the Nobel Prize for Physics in nineteen o three, 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.159 their older daughter Iranne was just six years old and 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.959 their younger daughter ev was yet unborn. Little could they 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:23.680 have imagined that their extended family would go on to 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:28.520 hold more Nobel Prizes than any other. It all started 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.400 with the romance and collaboration between Marie and Pierre. They 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.600 met in eighteen ninety four when she, at twenty seven 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:38.920 years old, took a job in Pierre's lab. He was 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.320 then a thirty five year old physicists studying crystals and magnetism, 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.080 and they quickly fell in love. The next year they 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:49.000 were married. Though Pierre was several years her senior, it 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.239 was Marie who steered their work into radiation. For her 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.040 doctoral thesis, she began building on the work of Henri 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:59.800 Bakrel and German physicist Wilhelm Runtgun, who had recently discovered 0:00:59.880 --> 0:01:04.679 X rays. Marie eventually hypothesized that the mysterious penetrating rays 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:09.040 were a property of a given elements atoms. Pierre shelved 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:11.720 his work with crystals. To help Marie further her discoveries, 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:14.360 they set out to measure the strength of the rays 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:19.200 by adapting an instrument Pierre developed studying an or containing uranium. 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.280 Marie noted that it emitted much more radiation than one 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:26.800 would expect from the element alone. While investigating the source 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:31.120 of the rays, they discovered two new radioactive elements, radium 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.760 and polonium, which Marine named for Poland, the country of 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:40.640 her birth. Polonium was four hundred times more radioactive than uranium. 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:43.200 The pair were deeply devoted to their work and to 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.480 one another, yet just three years after they won their 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:50.360 Nobel Prize, their collaboration ended tragically when Pierre was run 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:54.480 over by a horse drawn cart. Marie was devastated, but 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.560 we spoke via email with Shelley Emling, author of Marie 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:00.360 Curie and Her Daughters, The Private Lives of Cy his 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.600 first family. She said, from all accounts, Marie loved her 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.800 husband deeply and was overwhelmed with grief, so much so 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:12.360 that she refused to talk about Pierre. However, she eventually 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.280 published a biography of Pierre in ninety three. In it, 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.560 Murray wrote, it is impossible for me to express the 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.720 profoundness and importance of the crisis brought into my life 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:24.400 by the loss of the one who had been my 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.480 closest companion and best friend. Crushed by the blow, I 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.160 did not feel able to face the future. I could 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.880 not forget, however, what my husband used to sometimes say, that, 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.880 even deprived of him, I ought to continue my work. 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.840 And continue she did, even though her very presence in 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.880 the field was somewhat controversial. Marie was the first woman 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.400 to receive a PhD in France, the first female professor 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:53.720 at the Saban, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:56.600 the first person to win more than one Nobel Prize 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:58.880 and to this day the only woman to win more 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.799 than once, and the first person to win a Nobel 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:06.160 in more than one scientific field. And not everyone of 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.680 the time thought Marie deserved to share the scientific stage 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:14.200 with her male colleagues, so in nineteen o three, the 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:16.680 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Marie and her 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:19.680 husband for their study of radiation, as well as to 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:24.200 Beckrell for his observation of spontaneous radiation in uranium. But 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.880 originally the members of the French Academy of Sciences nominated 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.639 only Pierre and Beckrell for the prize. Marie was included 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:34.280 only after Pierre worked to persuade some of the Nobel 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:37.120 committee that his wife deserved to share the honor to 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.960 and at the awards ceremony, the president of the Swedish 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:44.760 Academy downplayed her contributions, quoting the Bible in his speech, 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:47.160 it is not good that man should be alone. I 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:51.480 will make a help meet for him. Eight years later, 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.240 in nineteen eleven, Marie was the sole recipient of the 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.200 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in recognition of her discovery of 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.480 radium and polonium and her subsequent research into nature of 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:03.840 those elements. In that time, there was pushback from people 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:06.760 who believed she was receiving the prize for essentially the 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.840 same work and thus that she didn't deserve it. But 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.000 whatever anyone thought about it, those Nobel prizes made the 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:18.560 reserved Marie a celebrity. But we also spoke with Naomi Passakoff, 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.599 author of Marie Curry and the Science of Radioactivity. She 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.440 said she was a renowned scientist at a time when 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.000 there were virtually no women in the field. She was 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.000 a heroine. She was an oddity in some ways. She 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:36.320 was famous for being famous. In Marie and her two 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:38.920 daughters set off across the Atlantic Ocean on their first 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:42.240 journey to America, where Marie was mobbed by fans and 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:46.040 given a queen's welcome. In New York, Marie was hosted 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:49.640 at the Waldorf Astoria Carnegie Hall in the American Museum 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.520 of Natural History, which hosted an exhibit dedicated to her 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:57.200 discovery of radium. Universities conferred honorary degrees on her, and 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.799 President Warren G. Harding held an event in her honor 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:04.320 at White House. Em Ling said, until that time, her 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.599 daughters had no idea that their mother was famous. Marie 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.359 was nothing if not humble, But everywhere they went in 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.120 America they were greeted by throngs of reporters and flashing cameras. 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:18.400 People wanted Marie's autograph. The girls were stunned, as was Marie. 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.800 Speaking of her family, Marie was determined not to give 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.279 up her scientific work after the birth of her daughters, 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.080 em Ling said, But although she was relentless in her 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.719 scientific pursuits, she was also devoted to her daughters. It's 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.200 true that she wasn't able to spend an inordinate amount 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:39.040 of time with her children, which meant Marie's father in 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:41.920 law and others often cared for them, but she did 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:46.480 lead by example. Em Ling added that she was especially 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:50.080 involved in their upbringing. After Pierre's death, Marie enrolled her 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.640 girls in a cooperative school in which the parents took 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.599 turns teaching the children lessons in their areas of expertise. 0:05:55.920 --> 0:06:00.160 Marie taught physical sciences. As the years went on, Wren 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.880 took her father's place as Marie's colleague. During World War One, 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.599 when Iren was a teenager, she assisted her mother in 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.800 bringing X rays to the battlefront to treat wounded soldiers. 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.440 Iran worked alongside her mother running mobile X ray units 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:17.120 in field hospitals and specially outfitted vehicles, which the soldiers 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:22.560 dubbed petit curies. Passakoff said Marie felt so confident in 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.280 her daughter's knowledge and abilities that she had Irene give 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.640 courses in radiation to soldiers and nurses. This was even 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:33.359 before Wren had earned her university degree. Later, Iran became 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:36.560 her mother's assistant at the Radium Institute while completing her studies. 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:40.600 It's there that a Wren met engineer Frederic Jolo, a 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.960 trainee in Marie's lab, whom she married in nine In 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.840 ninety four, the couple made an important discovery when they 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.880 figured out a way to artificially create radioactive adams in 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.000 the lab. It earned them a shared Nobel in Chemistry 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.279 the following year, making Irene and her parents the only 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:01.120 mother daughter and father daughter pairs ever to receive the prize. 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.800 Though like her mother, Iran eventually died of prolonged exposure 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:12.200 to radiation. But what about Marie's other daughter Ev. Rather 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.320 than follow her parents into the sciences, Ev found success 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.920 as a writer. Perhaps her best known work was Madame Curie, 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:21.680 a biography of her mother that she wrote after Marie 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.920 died in nineteen thirty four. The book became a huge 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:30.280 bestseller and earned EV literary acclaim. Emling said. During World 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:34.080 War Two, Ev became a foreign correspondent, traveling tens of 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:39.480 thousands of miles to wartime fronts that included Iran, Iraq, India, China, Burma, 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.440 and North Africa. Ev went on to publish a second 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:47.040 best selling book about her experiences, this one called Journey 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:51.560 among Warriors. Emling said. When V arrived for a book 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.640 tour in the United States, where her smiling face graced 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.760 the cover of Time magazine In February of nineteen forty, 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.120 she was greeted as a celebrity. She gave lectures and 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:06.119 had dinner with Eleanor Roosevelt. After the war, Ev turned 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.640 to humanitarian work. In nineteen fifty two, she was appointed 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.200 Special Adviser to the first Secretary General of NATO. In 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:17.520 nineteen fifty four, she married an American diplomat, Henry Richardson Labouise, 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.320 who later became the executive director of UNISEEF. EV would 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:25.280 also travel extensively for UNI SEF, and in nineteen sixty five, 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:28.000 when UNISF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it was 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:31.440 Labuis who accepted the honor on the organization's behalf, making 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:33.920 him the fifth person in the Curis extended family to 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.440 receive the prize. Ev would die in two thousand seven 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.120 at the age of a d two, and the distinguished 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:45.800 scientific tradition of the Curie family still lives on. Ellen Lazenzolio, 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:48.959 the daughter of Irene and Frederic, is a well respected 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:53.400 nuclear physicist in France, and Ellen's husband, Michel Lazene is 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:57.040 also a nuclear physicist, and their son is an astro physicist. 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:04.800 Today's episode was written by Jennifery Marquees and produced by 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.640 Tyler Clang. I've been meaning to do this episode for 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.439 a while, but wanted to air it today because Radium 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:12.480 is the subject of the first episode of a new 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:17.120 podcast that I'm narrating. It's called American Shadows and premieres today. 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:20.120 It's produced by Aaron Minki and his team at Grimm 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:22.559 and Mild along with I Heart Radio, and it's an 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:26.760 exploration of the dark, true stories from America's past. It 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.880 gets into some disturbing territory, but if you like lore 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.000 or unobscured, I hope you'll give it a try. That's 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:37.600 American Shadows, available wherever fine podcasts are found. Brain Stuff 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:39.920 is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.959 my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:44.800 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.