Stop Romanticizing the Struggle
Stop Romanticizing the Struggle
Marie Curie's abandoned shed for a laboratory
“Your personal experiences with money make up 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world, but 80% of how you think the world works,” writes Morgan Housel, the best-selling author of The Psychology of Money.
Hello and welcome to another new issue of Abandoned Curiosities. This past week, I read Madam Curie, a biography of Marie Curie written by her daughter Eve.
Marie was a Polish-born French physicist and chemist — and twice a Nobel Prize winner — who genuinely believed that “In science, one must be interested in things, not in persons.” And so it’s with a great dilemma that I devote this issue to her.
Marie and her husband, Pierre Curie, are most remembered for their pioneering research on radioactivity and its subsequent usage in the treatment of cancer. But, today, I want to talk to you about the precarious — and often heartbreaking — conditions under which these discoveries were made.
“We had no money, no laboratory, and no help in the conduct of this important and difficult task,” as Marie would write later.
“It was like creating something out of nothing.”
In their many years of work, the couple could not find a laboratory — even a proper room — to carry out their research. They finally had to settle with a shack — “an abandoned shed, with a skylight roof in such bad condition that it admitted the rain.”
Eve further describes the situation of her parents in the pursuit of science: “Torn between their own work and their jobs, they forgot to eat and sleep… In four years of work in the shed, Marie lost seven kilograms.” In Eve’s words, “Radioactivity grew and developed, exhausting little by little the pair of physicists who had given it life.”
In fact, Marie’s eventual death due to leukemia is believed to have been brought on by her exposure to the high levels of radiation involved in her studies.
While the couple’s devotion remains a testament to their art, Marie offers us a more practical view: “It is true that the discovery of radium was made in precarious conditions: the shed which sheltered it seems clouded in the charms of legend. But this romantic element was not an advantage: it wore out our strength and delayed our accomplishment. With better means, the first five years of our work might have been reduced to two, and their tension lessened.”
In our last issue, I talked about Vincent Van Gogh. Today, his paintings are among some of the world’s most expensive paintings ever sold. Yet, Van Gogh could sell just one painting in his lifetime, and, struggling, he shot himself in the end.
Van Gogh could have used some of the recognition and the money while he was alive. Likewise, Marie and Pierre Curie couldn’t have enjoyed working in an abandoned shed. And it breaks your heart, even more, when you consider that the Curies could have patented their discoveries and probably made more money than they could’ve handled.
As Eve points out in her book, “Soon after their discovery of radium, Pierre and Marie Curie made a decision to which they did not attach special importance, but which was to have a great influence over the rest of their lives.”
It was after all a question concerning the patent, to which Marie had casually replied, “If our discovery has a commercial future, that is an accident by which we must not profit. And radium is going to be of use in treating disease… It seems to me impossible to take advantage of that.”
It seems to me impossible to not admire Marie.
Reflecting on the decision years later, Marie writes, “Humanity certainly needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit.”
In the end, I’m glad science has its dreamers. What do you think?
This week, I’m reading not just one book, but wandering between many. I’ve been checking out Van Gogh’s original letters to Theo. I’m reading, or rather re-reading, Seneca’s letters to his friend Lucilius. I’m also revisiting Rumi’s poetry. And there’s probably more to it, but that’s all I can think of right now.
One more thing. I’ve decided to take a week off, and for no particular reason. So I’ll see you in the week after that. Meanwhile, you can follow me on Twitter, while I haven’t been active lately, I’d like to change that.
And, finally, to the hundreds of you, who are actively reading this newsletter, please tell me what you like or dislike about it. I’d appreciate any and all feedback. So please reply to this email. Also, if you could share it with a couple of friends? Thank you.
Also this week: I’d like to give a shoutout to a couple of fellow Substack writers.
First, Sat Post by Trung Phan. Trung is a Twitter 🐐, sharing some of the greatest threads and memes on the site. The guy’s audience includes Elon Musk, the new owner of the platform. Anyway, here’s Trung’s latest post on the FTX saga, for those of you into crypto, or leaving it, for that matter.
The second is Subtle Maneuvers by Mason Currey. I read Mason’s Daily Rituals book some time back and really enjoyed it. The book uniquely documents the routines and habits of a ton of artists. I recently came across Mason’s newsletter and I had to follow. Here’s one of his latest posts that I thoroughly enjoyed:
And, finally, One Useful Thing (And Also Some Other Things) by Ethan Mollick. Long name, I know. But I’ve just started to follow Ethan on Twitter, and I appreciate his tweets a lot. In his latest experiment, Ethan, who is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, will be “translating his (brilliant) research into advice, or commentary, in a short, useful way.” Here’s what I’m reading:
And that’s all. Thanks for reading.
Until next time!
Sumit.