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  • Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium
  • Elizabeth Bush
McClafferty, Carla Killough Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium. Farrar, 2006 [144p] illus. with photographs ISBN 0-374-38036-8$18.00 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 5-8

Perhaps no scientific career stands in greater contrast to that of Isaac Newton (see Krull, above) than that of Marie Curie. Newton experienced his annus mirabilis at twenty-four, the age at which Marie was finally able to enroll in college. While Newton worked as a sort of lone wolf, Marie and husband Pierre collaborated so closely they shared notebooks and carefully credited each other's efforts in their public lectures. While Newton hoarded his work, jealous of retaining appropriate credit for his discoveries, the Curies never patented their work, believing that the element radium was the "property" of humankind. In her smooth-moving text, McClafferty not only covers expected biographical data but also contrasts Curie's dedication to the study of radioactive elements with the exploitation of radium by the established medical community and a host of quacks and snake-oil salesmen as a silver-bullet cure for most ailments. As applications moved in advance of understanding, reputable scientists (the Curies included) as well a gullible public freely placed themselves in the path of debilitating or even lethal exposure to radiation. Thus, biography melds here with social history to present Marie Curie as both shaper of and subject to the limits of early twentieth-century science. Generously illustrated with black-and-white photos, medical realia, and document reproductions, the volume also includes source notes, a selected bibliography, index, and annotated list of websites.

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