A network of coincidences and aspects in common gradually weaved together the friendship that united the two greatest personalities in science of the 20th century. In the midst of war conflicts and a circle of geniuses, Marie Curie and Albert Einstein cemented «for 20 years a sublime and perennial friendship.»
The first half of the 20th century was full of remarkable discoveries in the scientific area, thanks to which we now understand the world a little better. Marx Planck, Henri Becquerel, Erwin Schrödinger, Niels Bohr and many other brilliant minds formed a generation of thinkers that would change science forever. Among their ranks were of course Pierre and Marie Curie, who had already won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, and a young Albert Einstein, on the rise of his career.
a mutual friend
According to Stanley Pycior, emeritus professor of history and author of Marie Sklodowska Curie and Albert Einstein: a professional and personal relationship, whose review was at the hands of Eve Curie, daughter of the Nobel-winning couple, Einstein and Marie met in 1909 when they attended an event at the University of Geneva. They met thanks to a mutual friend, the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics a year before the Curies.
Lorentz met Marie nine years ago, in 1900, at a physics conference in Paris. For his part, Einstein had also known Hendrik for years. So, in his attendance at Geneva in 1909, Lorentz took it upon himself to introduce the now famous Marie to a young Einstein who had just published his Theory of Special Relativity.
First Solvay Congress
In this first meeting, a spark of understanding arose between the genius of both scientists. But it was not until 2011 when the friendship between Marie Curie and Albert Einstein really began, a scientific event and a personal disagreement would bring them closer to forging more fraternal ties. That year, both attended the first congress that would be marked for later as the Solvay Conference. The same that is famous for bringing together scientists of the stature of Max Planck and Henri Poincré, which would later be held annually. In this first conference, the central theme focused on the quantum problem, so Einstein, only 32 years old, made a special presentation on the topic.
Marie Curie, who was 44 years old at the time, was the only woman among a circle of prominent scientists. However, his reputation was already well known among the community, but this and having won the Nobel Prize in Physics did not prevent him from paying attention to the young Einstein of whom he would later say: «In Brussels, where he attended a scientific conference in which Mr. Einstein also participated, I was able to admire the clarity of his intellect, the breadth of his information and the depth of his knowledge”.
personal disagreement
That same year, a personal disagreement occurred in the life of Marie, who had already lost her husband Pierre five years earlier. In 1911, Marie was having an affair with fellow scientist Paul Lengevin, who, although married, lived apart from his wife. But back then, social issues were taken very seriously, so three days before Curie won the Nobel again, this time in Chemistry, Lengevin’s wife made her relationship public.
The French press harshly criticized the scientist and classified her as an agnostic and destroyer of marriages. Angry mobs gathered outside Marie’s home, shouting threatening slogans against her. This aroused the disagreement of Einstein who found out about what happened from distant lands. Albert then wrote a very emotional letter to Curie to show his empathy with the situation.
“Don’t laugh at me for writing to you without having anything sensible to say. But I am so angry at the vile way public opinion currently dares to mess with you, that I absolutely need to air this sentiment. I feel compelled to tell you how much I have come to admire your intellect, your energy, and your honesty. I consider myself lucky to have met her in Brussels (…). If the mob is still looking after you, just stop reading that nonsense. Let them remain for the vipers for which they have been manufactured.
The foundations of a perennial friendship
This letter laid the foundation for a friendship that would last for 20 years and cross generational lines. (Einstein later also developed a good friendship with Irene Curie, daughter of the Curies.) And while it is true that the barriers caused by the First World War put a pause on their friendship, Einstein and Marie later achieved an unparalleled synergistic connection. Eve, the youngest daughter of the Curies, once commented that their friendship was full of admiration:
“They admired each other; their friendship was frank and loyal and they loved to have endless talks on theoretical physics, sometimes in French, sometimes in German.
Irene Curie and Albert Einstein
The synergistic complement
They functioned as a synergistic complement. Einstein was a theoretical physicist, whose job was to devise hypothetical situations in his mind that would help him understand the laws of physics. For her part, Marie lived from the laboratory and experimental physics. The ideas of both as a whole could only arise from this mental pairing, no one else would have been able to understand their genius. In addition, both experienced episodes of exclusion that led them to feel understood by each other.
Einstein was a German Jew at a time when his religion and ancestry were frowned upon. And Curie was a woman who escaped from Poland to pursue her dream of going to university, maybe she didn’t know it, but she managed to become the most outstanding woman in the history of science. This feeling of being foreigners in their own home nations brought them closer together.
And as Albert Einstein himself described it in a letter where he paid tribute to Marie Curie and her friendship, after her death from radiation exposure:
“It was a great fortune for me to be able to associate with Madame Curie during 20 years of sublime and perennial friendship. I came to admire her human greatness more and more…
If Madame Curie’s strength of character and devotion were alive in Europe’s intellectuals, even in a small proportion, Europe would have a brighter future ahead of it.»
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