Headline Aug 9,2014/ ''' SOME HUMAN ! : SOME SCIENTIST ! '''

''' SOME HUMAN ! : 

SOME SCIENTIST ! '''

MADAM CURIE, one of the very few women whose name will probably be remembered for a thousand years,  was a shy, timid Polish girl-

Who discovered what the great scientists thought was impossible. She discovered a new element vastly different from any other element known to science.

An element that radiated energy incessantly. She named it radium.  

Three years after she arrived in Paris, Manya Sklodowska married the only kind of a man with whom she could have ever been happy   - a man who like herself, was completely devoted to science:

His name was Pierre Currie. He was only thirty-five years old, yet he was one of the most distinguished scientists in France.

They day they were married, their totally  earthly possessions  consisted of a couple of bicycles, and they spent their honeymoon bicycling through the French countryside, lunching on bread and cheese and fruit-

And spending their nights in village inns where the soft candlelight threw weird  faded shadows on the faded wallpaper.

Three years later, Madam Curie was preparing for her doctor's degree; in order to get the degree of   Doctor  of  Philosophy, she had to do some original scientific research and write a report on it.

She decided to devout her research to trying to solve a recently discovered mystery   -the mystery of why a metal called uranium gave off rays of light.

It was the beginning of a great scientific adventure, a voyage into the fascinating mysteries of chemistry.

Madam Curie tested all known chemical bodies and she also tested hundreds of minerals to discover if they gave off those mysterious rays; and finally concluded that these powerful rays were shot into space by some unknown element.

Finally, Madam Curie's husband, Pierre Curie, dropped his own experiments to help her search for the mysterious new element.

After months of experiment, Madame Curie and her husband tossed a bombshell into the scientific world:

They announced that they believed they had discovered a metal whose radiation was a two million times stronger than the radiation of uranium; a metal whose rays could penetrate wood, stone, steel, copper.

A miracle metal whose rays could be stopped by nothing except thick sheets of lead. If they had indeed made such a discovery, it would upset all the fundamental theories in which scientists had believed for centuries.

They named their miraculous substance radium.

Nothing like it had ever been known before. It was so sensationally different from all other metals that sober scientists doubted that such a metal could even exist. They demanded proof. Show us pure radium, they said, so we can see it and discover its atomic weight.

So Madame Curie and her husband worked for the next four years   1898-1902 to prove the existence of radium  -worked for four years to produce a decigram of radium, a quantity no bigger than half the size of pea.

And as the true tale unfolds: In 1902 Madam Curie and her husband had to decide whether they wanted to be rich,  or true to the selfless ideals of scientific research.

By that time it had already been discovered that  radium was invaluable in treating cancer.

There was a growing demand in the world for radium and nobody knew how to produce it except Madam Curie and her husband.

They could have patented the technique they had invented for extracting it and have obtained a royalty on every bit of radium produced throughout the world.  

Since radium was later going to be produced for a profit, few people would have blamed Madam Curie and her husband for accepting a royalty from the commercial manufacturers.

Such a royalty would have meant economic security for them and their children, the elimination of drudgery, and the building of a fine laboratory for further research.

But it renews and deepens one's faith in human nature to know that Madame Curie refused to accept one penny for the discovery.

''It would be impossible,'' she said.  ''It would be contrary to the scientific spirit. Besides, radium is going to be used in treating disease, and it would be impossible to take advantage of that.''

So with a Saint like unselfishness, she choose forever between riches and comparative poverty-

Between a life of ease and life of service.

With respectful dedication to the Students of the world. See Ya all on !WOW! - the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

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Good Night and God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless