But her devotion to knowledge continued, and it did not surprise anyone when she graduated from high school at the age of fifteen, earning top standing in all her subjects. She intended to continue her studies, but given that the area they were living in was ruled by Russia, girls were not allowed to attend university. Maria came up with a plan. She made a pact with her older sister, Bronislawa, known as Bronia: Maria would find work as a governess and help Bronia through her medical studies in Paris. When Bronia finished school and became a doctor, Maria would then move to Paris and live with her, and in turn Bronia would repay the favor and help Maria attend university and follow in her path.
It had seemed like a perfect plan. And so Maria took a position with a wealthy family in the Polish countryside, where she met and became involved with the family’s oldest son. It was with him that she experienced passion for the first time. But when his family learned of the affair, they refused them permission to marry, in view of their different social status. While their relationship continued unbeknownst to his family for some time, it eventually ended when she realized that she could never marry him.
When Maria’s work contract ended, Bronia tried to persuade her to move to Paris, where she could keep her end of the bargain. Instead, Maria decided to stay in Poland. With her father’s help, she was assigned laboratory space in a museum, where she began to replicate experiments that she had read about in several papers devoted to physics and chemistry that her father had given her.
She stayed in Poland for a year, refining her experiments and her research skills. But she now found herself with some money in hand, and she finally decided to travel to Paris. She stayed with her sister for a while, but Bronia had married and was pregnant. Finding that she needed more privacy, Maria moved out.
Despite not being fully proficient in French, she had enrolled at the Sorbonne, using the French style of her name, Marie, and continued to excel, graduating in 1893 with a master’s degree in physics. Just as she had done in high school, she placed first in her class. Not satisfied with that degree, she earned another degree the following year in mathematics.
It was around this time that she was introduced to Pierre Curie, and their romance moved swiftly. In July 1895 they married in a simple ceremony where they did not even exchange rings and for which Marie chose a simple dress that she could wear afterward in the laboratory.
A little over two years after the wedding, Marie and Pierre Curie’s first daughter, Irène, was born. Marie tried raising her daughter herself but realized that she needed outside help. Pierre’s father, Eugène, who had lost his wife, didn’t mind moving in with them to care for the baby. Life became a little easier for Marie with her father-in-law looking after her daughter as well as taking care of some of the household chores and doing a bit of cooking, skills at which she had never really excelled.
During this time, Marie studied the properties of magnetism. As she delved more deeply into research for her doctoral thesis, something else caught her attention. It had nothing to do with her research, but it intrigued her all the same. She learned of Henri Becquerel’s work on uranium salts. Becquerel had noticed that his uranium salts emitted some kind of perplexing invisible rays of energy on their own without exposure to light. Marie Curie was captivated by this discovery and wanted to uncover what those rays were about, to measure them, and, more specifically, to find out why this phenomenon happened. Her detailed experiments allowed her to come up with her own hypothesis: There were traces of another substance in the mineral, and it was more radioactive than any element anyone had ever seen before.
She continued her experiments with more excitement and discovered the existence of two previously unknown elements. In 1898, she identified polonium, which she named as a nod to her native Poland. Mere months later, the second element, radium—named for the Latin word for “ray”—came to light.
Discovering the two elements had not been easy, but now Marie set herself an even more difficult task: proving their existence by isolating and purifying them. In order to start the process of purification, Marie had to get a decent amount of pitchblende, a form of uranium ore now called uraninite. This she dissolved in acid, separating the elements. She had to stir huge pots of boiling solutions with a long iron rod, a process that was strenuous and left her drained. Over and over, she undertook this process, distilling thousands of gallons from the pitchblende, which left her with only enough radium to fill a bottle cap.
That she had managed not only to discover radium but also to isolate it and determine its atomic weight stunned the scientific community.
As if that work to isolate radium weren’t hard enough on its own, Marie began working part-time as an instructor at a teacher training college for women in nearby Sèvres, while at the same time she and Pierre continued their experiments. It was trying work that allowed her barely enough time for eating and sleeping. However, she would later recall those days as being the happiest time of her life. Some assumed it was because of the birth of her daughter, but the reality was that Irène had nothing to do with it. It was the hours of working in tandem with Pierre that made her happy, focused on her research in the hopes of another discovery. She would say that this pursuit had given her life meaning.
To only a few friends did she reveal that her mothering duties sometimes kept her away from what she loved to do the most: work in her laboratory. When she could not leave her child with her father-in-law, she brought Irène to the lab and left her in a small crib nearby. In fact, baby Irène was sleeping peacefully when her mother isolated radium, the test tubes glowing bright in her parent’s hands.
When people learned that Irène had often been left in her grandfather’s care or perhaps didn’t receive as much attention from her parents as she should have while Marie and Pierre engaged in their experiments, it was Marie who bore the brunt of the criticism, not Pierre.
What helped Marie to be seen in a better light was the fact that radium could be linked to medical cures. She had dedicated her life to the betterment of humanity, and her detractors eventually agreed. If her daughter had been slightly neglected—which she was not—millions of others benefited from it.
In 1903, the Curies won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their research into radioactivity. They shared the Nobel Prize with Henri Becquerel, who had inspired Marie in her scientific quest. Marie did not know it, but there had been a quiet movement within the French scientific community to prevent her from receiving the Nobel Prize along with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel. Despite all that she had accomplished, and all that she had discovered, some still believed that Marie did not deserve the honor.
As it turned out, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences had found out about the plot, and a Swedish mathematician had alerted Pierre Curie to the schemes occurring behind their backs. Pierre let it be known that a prize relating to radioactivity could not exclude Marie Curie. Henri Becquerel had inspired her concepts, but Marie had seen them to fruition and had isolated the radioactive elements. How was it possible to exclude her, to deny her the prize and the acclaim that went with it, when she was responsible for everything?
Despite Pierre’s imploring and his acknowledgment that she had spearheaded the project and the discoveries, it was widely assumed that Marie had received the prize more because she had assisted Pierre than because she deserved it on her own merits. That belief became blatantly obvious when the Nobel Prize was handed out. The president of the Swedish Academy of Sciences illustrated the couple’s success by uttering the proverb “Union is strength.” Then he quoted the Bible: “It is not good for Man to be alone; I will make a helpmate.” The clear implication was that Marie had served as Pierre’s wonderful and faithful assistant during his experimentation.
This was also the time when Marie lost a baby, a little girl who was born too early. Marie always blamed herself for that death. She admitted that she had worked too hard during her pregnancy, particularly in the few months before the birth. She later gave birth t
o another daughter, Ève, in 1904, which eased her sorrow somewhat.
After Marie Curie received the Nobel Prize, she continued her teaching and research. She didn’t know it at the time, but her discoveries would have huge and devastating consequences in the rush to build the atomic bomb. Had she known this, she likely would have not been so eager to open her space to other scientists—especially the many female students—who wanted to learn from her. Their research with their mentor Curie would later make all the difference once World War II started.
chapter two
A Shy and Quiet Girl
Lise Meitner wanted to continue her scientific research and decided the best place to do so was at Marie Curie’s laboratory in Paris. Lise applied to study with the noted scientist, but she was saddened to read the response letter: Curie had rejected her application to study in her laboratory. Lise Meitner didn’t know why. She thought of Marie Curie as the mother of radioactivity and had sent a letter not only expressing her interest in the field but also listing her qualifications, and that she believed she would fit quite nicely in the Parisian laboratory. But Lise had been denied.
Swallowing her disappointment, she continued her life in Vienna. But soon, seeing no future for herself beyond teaching, she decided that attending Max Planck’s noted series of lectures in Berlin would be worthwhile. Planck was a noted German physicist, and while he was not her first choice, Lise knew that he would have much to teach her. However, she didn’t know whether he would be open to the possibility of having her study with him. She knew that while Planck was not thrilled about women scientists and academics, believing them mainly capable of being mothers and housewives, he sometimes made exceptions. To her surprise, he agreed; he would allow her to attend his lectures at the University of Berlin. Although this was not Lise’s original plan, it was a new direction and a new opportunity, so she took it, assuring her parents that she would remain in Berlin for only three months, six at most. She didn’t think she would find the environment in Berlin as stimulating as Vienna’s, she told them, or the one she would have found in Paris with Marie Curie. However, she needed to give it a go, regardless.
Lise adjusted herself in her seat and felt the train chugging forward and watched the cityscape of Vienna morph into more pastoral surroundings. She thought back to how her journey had started so many years ago, and how her love of physics had brought her to this life-changing moment.
She had entered the kitchen one morning, as she did every morning, to have her usual breakfast. She had found her father sitting at the table, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper before heading to work. He was always very interested in the latest news, and splattered across the pages often were stories of Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre Curie, who had just discovered radium. The papers suggested that one day, radium would be the cure for everything.
Lise did not ask her father what radium was, nor did she bug him for more information about the Curies. Even within her family, she was a shy and quiet girl who had a hunger for books. She would remain that way growing up—though when her notoriety as a scientist grew, her shyness gave way to confidence.
She grew up in a household that thrived on knowledge. Her father, Philipp Meitner, was a prominent lawyer. Her mother, Hedwig, was a homemaker whose parents had paid for her to attend high school—even though public education commonly ended at fourteen for girls in Vienna in the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, Hedwig was a very progressive woman. She had a broad view of politics and history and wide-ranging interests in music and art, which she tried to impart to Lise and her siblings. Hedwig was also the ruler of the house. She taught her eight children to obey their parents, especially their father, as well as to be able to think for themselves.
Despite the fact that her father had a demanding career, it was to him that Lise felt closest. She liked the fact that he had dedicated his life to his profession and that he had learned everything there was to learn about the law. He could debate anyone with respect to the law, in any setting and at any time. She loved to watch him do so.
Lise enjoyed spending hours with him, out in the city, just the two of them, talking about the various monuments and the history behind them. As the years rolled by, these outings with her father took the place of playtime with friends, such as the ones her siblings had, and later on made up for her lack of dates with boyfriends, such as the ones her sisters brought home. While she remained devoted to her studies, she always looked back on her time with her father with great affection.
Growing up in Vienna in the late 1800s, Lise Meitner was a student at the Elevated High School for Girls, but she was unsure of what her future held. She was reserved and, unlike most others her age, did not make much of an effort to attract a husband. Still, she was certain that she did not want to be a part of the “kitchen, children, church” lifestyle that all her schoolmates were striving for. While others considered her unusual, she often stared at them and wondered why they would fall into the role that society had assigned to them.
Since childhood, Lise’s true interests had been science and mathematics. Several other girls at her school preferred math and science, too; a most unusual bunch, they often stuck together. From her father, Lise had heard of Madame Curie, and while she had not asked him for further information at the time, she later read about her accomplishments. In her success and in her experiments, Curie had shown that it was possible for a woman to build a life in science.
But if Lise wished to follow in Madame Curie’s footsteps, she would need to learn more about mathematics and physics. She knew that she needed to do something drastic, such as attend the University of Vienna. But one problem stood in her way: Only a few women were admitted to the University of Vienna each year, and of those women who had gone there, several had said, “You have to be twice as good as a man to get in!”
Undeterred, Lise worked up the courage to bring up the subject with her father. Surprising even herself, she stood her ground, firmly telling him that she intended to go to the university. She wished to learn all that Madame Curie had learned, and possibly even more. So her father agreed. Not only that, but he paid for a tutor to prepare her for the entrance exam.
Lise and two other young women joined professor Arthur Szarvassy, who helped prepare them for the exam. He was enthusiastic about women’s education, so he made it his business, and his mission, to teach them as much as he could about mathematics, chemistry, and physics. And Professor Szarvassy knew a lot. Lise’s lessons took her way back to ancient Greece, and she learned about the first man who had conceived of the atom and how that idea had changed the ways of looking at the world.
The university entrance exam was held in a large boys’ school. It should have been held in a place attended by both girls and boys, Professor Szarvassy said, but that was the government policy, and they had to go along with it. It did not surprise him that his three pupils felt intimidated. Of the hundreds of people who had shown up to take the test, only fourteen were young women, Lise included; and they came from all over Austria. When they finished the long and arduous exam, they were herded into the corridor to wait for the results. The women glanced at one another with looks of doom on their faces, while the men smirked, heartily believing that they would pass while the women would naturally fail.
Professor Szarvassy came out to meet them, bringing with him the good news: His students had passed the exam.
Lise Meitner enrolled at the university, eager to gain as much knowledge as she could, and she promptly filled her schedule by enrolling in lectures on chemistry, physics, calculus, botany, history, literature, art, and music—as if she couldn’t get enough of everything the university had to offer.
In a lecture attended by hundreds of students, she was often the only woman in a sea of men. Their heads would turn as she walked into the room, and they would watch her as she settled into her seat. Quickly enough, she discovered the prevailing attitude drifting through the university hallways: Women could attend the lecture
s, but they should remain quiet and not ask any questions or intrude on the men’s serious business of learning. Women should merely sit, silent and docile, and be grateful that they had been allowed inside the hallowed classrooms.
She learned that most people, teachers and students alike, believed that women and scientific knowledge did not mix. Age-old customs held that men and women were born with different character traits: Women were good in the home, where they could indulge their natural tendencies for cooking, cleaning, and rearing children. The university and laboratory environments were no place for women, most people thought, believing that women did not have the mental energies or physical strength needed for a life devoted to science. Lise Meitner found it disturbing to come face-to-face with such mentalities sometimes, especially in a university.
She noticed that female students at the school were not so much included as tolerated, while some of the men actually showed downright hostility toward them. That this attitude was present not only among the students but also among the teachers bothered her even more. She often muttered to herself: “It’s not fair.” Indeed, it was not fair that the women had to prove themselves not only equal but also superior to the men.
In spite of her own frustrations, she persevered and even thrived.
When Ludwig Boltzmann returned to teach at the university the following fall semester after a sabbatical, life changed for Lise Meitner. Professor Boltzmann was a pioneer in thermodynamics. Lise Meitner became determined to take his classes. She wasn’t aware of it yet, but he would have a great influence on her life.
She often found herself sitting at his lectures in the Institute for Theoretical Physics, an old run-down apartment building not far from her other classes. She liked Professor Boltzmann; she liked his way of teaching, his enthusiasm, and his innovative theories, which very few others appreciated—and ultimately divided the scientific community. Occasionally, his classes were canceled for what were deemed “personal reasons,” which she suspected had to do with his frequent bouts of dark moods. She was sorry then, not only because she found herself with an empty block of time she needed to fill, but also because she despised the idea of her professor suffering.
Atomic Women Page 2