“I am one of those who believe that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician; he is also like a child facing natural phenomena, which impress him like a fairy tale to a child. Our mission is to find the means to externalize this feeling; we must not let it be believed that all scientific progress is reduced to machines and gears… which, on the other hand, also have their own beauty”. (Marie Curie, ‘The Future of Culture’, Madrid, 1933)
One of the lesser-known facets of the professional life of Maria Skłodowska-Curie Its the disclosure. The best-known scientist in history, despite her dread of large crowds, he had to leave his laboratory to look for funds to be able to continue researching; She was also driven by the desire to transmit the beauty and importance of science to society. Secondly, worked closely with the industry, transferring the necessary knowledge to develop industrial processes of radium extraction and later of “emanation & rdquor; -what we know today as the noble gas radon, produced by the radioactive decay of radium- which was then used as disinfectant and healing.
An even more unknown activity of Madame Curie is that of primary school teacher. Aware of her daughter’s elusive temperament Irene, Very similar to his father’s, who never fit into a conventional school, he designed one to suit his needs whose teachers were his fellow researchers and history and art professors at the Sorbonne University. Eight and nine-year-old boys and girls learned the fundamentals of physics, chemistry and mathematics in classes taught by the best scientists of the time with a large experimental component that took place in the laboratories of the Sorbonne, to the scandal of the more conservative teachers. In this unique school the students dedicated more time to physical exercise than to theoretical and experimental learning.
If there was something that characterized Marie Curie, it was the passion she put into everything she did, and science was, without a doubt, one of the activities to which she devoted the most time and energy. The best known part of her, her work as a researcher, gave rise to the quantification of radioactivity and the discovery of two new chemical elements, for which he received a Nobel Prize in Physics and another in Chemistry. But his efforts to explain science to society were also remarkable, something he did in many conferences given in France, his adopted country; Poland, his homeland; the United States, where he traveled in the scent of crowds in 1921 and 1929; Y in Spain, where she was invited three times. In 1919 he had a leading role in the First International Medical Congress, where he described the radiology service in vans that he had developed during the Great War. In 1931 he came as guest of the government of the newborn Second Republic, and in 1933 commissioned by the League of Nations to organize the congress ‘The future of culture’. He made this last trip with a thread of life, but he actively participated in it with the aim that the understanding between nations would make another war impossible.
His death, which occurred a few months after this trip, spared him the pain of seeing how that happy Republic that had been born without bloodshed was swept out of Spain by forces that did not believe in the progress of peoples. He also freed her from seeing how radioactivity that she had contributed to reveal, served to build the deadliest weapon ever used by man.
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During his trips to Spain gave memorable lectures. At the beginning of this article a fragment of one of them is collected in which she defended the beauty of science, which, according to her, arose from the curiosity inherent in human beings and it was one of the main engines of its development since the dawn of humanity. Science as a passion and as a substantial part of the culture and prosperity of nations.
On June 23, 2022, the Congress of Deputies approved the opinion of the reform of the Science Law with 279 votes in favor and 62 abstentions. Let it be for good.