Book Review: Madame Curie, by her daughter Eve Curie
It was decades ago that this book was recommended to me, and only now having finished it, see why this is in the list of all books that a scientist must read.
The Curies, Marie & Pierre, are an example of living the Way of the Scientist.
We know that a samurai stove to follow the laws (principles) of Bushido. We know that a knight of Arthur's court strove to follow a code. This is one of the reasons we all love reading the stories, and feeling the struggle and glory and adventure of these men and women.
Many of us try to be good to each other, try to practice the Golden Rule, try to be a Christian or Buddhist, yet a rigor and a clarity is very difficult to come by. If anything, we now look down upon the systems and codes of prior times. We see how just about everything is eventually corrupted by men & women. We all know about the Inquisition. But, if at the end of hundreds of years of Samurai protection, Japanese lords became too often corrupt, does that really mean that the rule of Bushido was misguided?
What then is the Way of the Scientist? The author, Eve Curie, the daughter of Marie & Pierre, devotes many pages to just that question, and usually through the examples of the actions of Marie & Pierre. My take on the fundamentals:
The intuition of the scientist
Experimentation & confirming ideas through repeatable observation
all results are the property of all mankind, never the personal property of individuals
I would challenge all scientists reading this, do you personally think that your way as a scientist implies any code, any way that you need to exist in the world?