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The Curies

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the scientific achievements of the Curie family, Marie and Pierre and their daughter Irene Joliot-Curie, all three of whom won Nobel Prizes.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the scientific achievements of the Curie family. In 1903 Marie and Pierre Curie shared a Nobel Prize in Physics with Henri Becquerel for their work on radioactivity, a term which Marie coined. Marie went on to win a Nobel in Chemistry eight years later; remarkably, her daughter Ir猫ne Joliot-Curie would later share a Nobel with her husband Fr茅d茅ric Joliot-Curie for their discovery that it was possible to create radioactive materials in the laboratory. The work of the Curies added immensely to our knowledge of fundamental physics and paved the way for modern treatments for cancer and other illnesses.

With:

Patricia Fara
Senior Tutor of Clare College, University of Cambridge

Robert Fox
Emeritus Professor of the History of Science at the University of Oxford

Steven T Bramwell
Professor of Physics and former Professor of Chemistry at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Available now

47 minutes

Last on

Thu 26 Mar 2015 21:30

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

READING LIST:

Denis Brian, The Curies: A Biography of the Most Controversial Family in Science (John Wiley & Sons, 2005)

脠ve Curie (trans. Vincent Sheean), Madame Curie (First published 1938; Style Press, 2007)

Marie Curie, Pierre Curie (First published 1923; Dover Publications, 2012)

Sarah Dry, Curie (Life & Times), (Haus Publishing, 2003)

Shelley Emling, Marie Curie and Her Daughters: The Private Lives of Science鈥檚 First Family (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)

Barbara Goldsmith, Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie (W. W. Norton, 2005)

Maurice Goldsmith, Fr茅d茅ric Joliot-Curie: A Biography (Lawrence and Wishart, 1976)

Susan Quinn, Marie Curie: A Life (Heinemann, 1995)

Robert William Reid, Marie Curie (Collins, 1974)

John Senior, Marie & Pierre Curie (Sutton Publishing, 1998)

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Melvyn Bragg
Interviewed Guest Patricia Fara
Interviewed Guest Robert Fox
Interviewed Guest Steven Bramwell
Producer Simon Tillotson

Broadcasts

  • Thu 26 Mar 2015 09:00
  • Thu 26 Mar 2015 21:30

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