Elements of Marie Curie

A new biography from the acclaimed and bestselling author of Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter, chronicling the life and work of the most famous woman in the history science, and the untold story of the young women who trained in her laboratory.

For decades Marie Curie was the only woman in the room at international scientific gatherings, and despite constant illness she travelled far and wide to share the secrets of radioactivity, a term she coined. She is still the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.

Her ingenuity extended far beyond the laboratory walls; grieving the death of her husband, Pierre, she took his place as professor of physics at the Sorbonne, devotedly raised two daughters, drove a van she outfitted with x-ray equipment to the front lines of World War I; befriended Albert Einstein and inspired generations of young women to pursue science as a way of life.

Approaching Marie Curie from a unique angle, Sobel navigates her remarkable discoveries and fame alongside the women who became her legacy – from Norway’s Ellen Gleditsch and France’s Marguerite Perry, who discovered the element francium, to her own daughter, Irene, a Nobel Prize winner in her own right. Elements of Marie Curie illuminates the trailblazing life and enduring influence of one of the most consequential figures of our time.

Reviews

Praise for Dava Sobel:

'She has an extraordinary gift of making difficult ideas clear' Daily Telegraph

'If you like your science lyrical Dava Sobel is the author for you’ Independent

'Sobel is an elegant stylist, a riveting and efficient storyteller, a writer who can bring the dustiest of subjects to full-blooded life' New York Times

'Sobel's enthusiasm for her subject is absolute and she succeeds in transmitting it to the reader, quite a feat when the subject matter can be so tricky to grasp' Sunday Telegraph

'Lively, inventive … a masterly specimen of close-range cultural history' Wall Street Journal

About the author

Dava Sobel is the author of the international bestseller, Longitude, the bestselling Pulitzer Prize finalist Galileo’s Daughter, The Planets, A More Perfect Heaven, And the Sun Stood Still, and The Glass Universe, and co-author of The Illustrated Longitude. She is the recipient of the Individual Public Service Award from the National Science Board, the Bradford Washburn Award, the Kumpke-Roberts Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. A former New York Times science reporter and current editor of the “Meter” poetry column in Scientific American, she lives on Long Island.