Einstein×Curie

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Verashare moment

   You're with Reborn Radio. Coming up: Albert Einstein sits down with Marie Curie for TITANS. The subject — On what they were willing to do for status that they would not admit at the time.
2. 00:11
   Albert Einsteinshare moment

   You know, Marie, I have been thinking about something uncomfortable. When I was younger, trying to get my papers published, trying to be taken seriously—I was not always so... independent as I later claimed to be.
3. 00:23
   Marie Curieshare moment

   Go on.
4. 00:24
   Albert Einsteinshare moment

   Well, I wrote letters. Many letters. To professors, to journal editors. Very respectful letters, maybe too respectful. I called them 'Herr Professor Doktor' this and that. I was... how do you say... ingratiating?
5. 00:37
   Marie Curieshare moment

   You wanted them to read your work.
6. 00:39
   Albert Einsteinshare moment

   Yes, but it was more than that. I wanted to be one of them. To be inside the circle. And I told myself it was just politeness, just the way things are done. But really, I was bending myself a little bit, no?
7. 00:49
   Marie Curieshare moment

   A little bit, perhaps. Though I notice you stopped doing that eventually.
8. 00:53
   Albert Einsteinshare moment

   After I had the position, yes! After I was Professor Einstein, then I could be the bohemian, the one who doesn't comb his hair. It's easier to reject status when you already have it.
9. 01:03
   Marie Curieshare moment

   Much easier. I never had that luxury.
10. 01:07
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    You—but you won two Nobel Prizes! You were famous across Europe!
11. 01:11
    Marie Curieshare moment

    Albert, I was never allowed to forget I was a woman in their laboratories. Never. The fame made certain things possible, yes. But I still had to be twice as careful, twice as correct. Even after Stockholm.
12. 01:26
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    What did you do? To get them to let you work?
13. 01:29
    Marie Curieshare moment

    I made myself... small. Not physically—I was already small. But I made my ambitions appear smaller than they were. When I wanted to use equipment at the Sorbonne, I would say I needed it for Pierre's experiments. Our experiments, but I would emphasize his name.
14. 01:46
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    That must have been—
15. 01:47
    Marie Curieshare moment

    Necessary. It was necessary. You think they would have given laboratory space to a Polish woman who could barely afford shoes? I told myself it was strategy. Practical thinking. But it was also... surrender. Small surrenders, every day.
16. 02:04
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    And Pierre, he knew you were doing this?
17. 02:07
    Marie Curieshare moment

    Pierre was a good man. But even he benefited from it, whether he acknowledged that or not. When we published together, people assumed he was the primary mind. And sometimes, when we were introducing our findings to important societies, he did not correct them as firmly as he might have.
18. 02:24
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Ah.
19. 02:25
    Marie Curieshare moment

    He was good, Albert. Better than most. But the world had made him certain assumptions about who does the thinking and who does the assisting. He had to work against his own training to see clearly. And he did, mostly. But not always in public. Not when it might have cost him something.
20. 02:42
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    I think about my first wife, Mileva. She was studying physics too, you know. Very talented. Some people have asked if she contributed to my early papers, the ones from 1905.
21. 02:51
    Marie Curieshare moment

    Did she?
22. 02:52
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    We discussed the ideas, certainly. We were partners then, talking through problems. But the mathematics, the central insights—those were mine. Still, I wonder sometimes if I was too quick to take all the credit, too comfortable being the only name on those papers.
23. 03:08
    Marie Curieshare moment

    You signed them alone?
24. 03:09
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Yes. I told myself this was normal, this was how it's done. A man publishes under his name. And she had not finished her degree—she failed her examinations. So it seemed natural that I should be the author. But maybe I wanted it to be natural. Maybe I did not look too closely at that question.
25. 03:25
    Marie Curieshare moment

    We protect ourselves from uncomfortable questions. We are very good at it.
26. 03:29
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    You, though—after Pierre died, you carried on. You took his professorship. You could have hidden behind his memory, but you didn't.
27. 03:36
    Marie Curieshare moment

    I did hide behind it, though. For years. Do you know how I got that professorship? They created it for Pierre, and when he died, they were going to give it to someone else. I had to fight for it, yes. But I also had to present myself as the guardian of his legacy. The faithful widow continuing her husband's work.
28. 03:55
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    But it was your work too.
29. 03:56
    Marie Curieshare moment

    Of course it was. But they needed that story. The devoted wife, the tragic figure. It made them comfortable with the idea of a woman in that position. So I gave them that story. I wore black. I spoke about Pierre in every lecture for years. And I told myself I was simply honoring his memory.
30. 04:15
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Which you were.
31. 04:16
    Marie Curieshare moment

    Which I was. But I was also performing grief in a way that made them trust me. Grief as credentials. And then, after the affair with Paul Langevin, when they wanted to take my second Nobel Prize away—
32. 04:29
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    That was outrageous. That they even suggested—
33. 04:31
    Marie Curieshare moment

    I wrote them a letter. Very dignified. I said my private life had nothing to do with my scientific work. Which was true and correct. But do you know what else I did? I stopped seeing Paul. Not because I stopped caring for him, but because I knew the scandal was destroying my ability to work, to be taken seriously. So I chose the work.
34. 04:51
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    That seems... I don't know. Rational, maybe? You had important research to complete.
35. 04:56
    Marie Curieshare moment

    Yes. But I told myself it was only about the research. I didn't admit, not even to myself, that I was also protecting my position. My status. I had finally gotten them to see me as a scientist, and I could not risk losing that. So I gave up someone I loved.
36. 05:12
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Marie, I—
37. 05:13
    Marie Curieshare moment

    I am not looking for sympathy, Albert. I made my choice with open eyes. But it was for status. At least partly. And I did not admit that at the time. I told myself it was higher principle.
38. 05:25
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    I left Germany. In 1933, when Hitler came to power. Everyone says, 'Oh, Einstein, he had principles, he stood against fascism.' And yes, this is true. But also—I had offers. Very good offers from Princeton, from Oxford. If I had been a clerk with no options, would I have been so brave?
39. 05:42
    Marie Curieshare moment

    You think you left because you could afford to?
40. 05:45
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    I think I don't know what I would have done if I had nothing. If I were still the patent clerk trying to feed his family. Maybe I would have bent. Maybe I would have been quiet. And I would have told myself, 'I must survive to do physics. My family needs me.' These are not lies, exactly. But they're also not the whole truth.
41. 06:02
    Marie Curieshare moment

    When the Academy of Sciences refused to admit me—they voted, and they rejected me because I was a woman—I continued to collaborate with them. I attended their lectures. I was polite at their functions.
42. 06:15
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    What else could you do?
43. 06:16
    Marie Curieshare moment

    I could have said, 'You do not deserve my work. You do not deserve my presence.' But I needed them. I needed their resources, their equipment, their recognition. So I smiled. And I told myself I was being strategic, being mature. Not admitting that I was swallowing humiliation in exchange for access.
44. 06:36
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Is it wrong, though? To make these compromises? We are not saints. We are people trying to do our work in an imperfect world.
45. 06:42
    Marie Curieshare moment

    No, it's not wrong. But it is worth admitting. That we wanted status. That we needed it. That we were willing to trade pieces of ourselves to get it. Not because we were weak, but because we were human.
46. 06:55
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    I wanted people to know my name. Not just my ideas—my name. I wanted to walk into a room and have them recognize me. Is that shameful?
47. 07:01
    Marie Curieshare moment

    It is what it is. I wanted them to stop seeing me as the assistant. As the woman in the corner taking notes. I wanted them to say 'Madame Curie' with the same weight they said 'Monsieur Becquerel.' And I did what I had to do to make that happen.
48. 07:16
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Even after you were famous, though. I remember you gave lectures, you traveled. You could have retired after the second Nobel Prize.
49. 07:22
    Marie Curieshare moment

    And give them the satisfaction? No. I worked until my body gave out. Until the radiation poisoning made it impossible. And yes, part of that was stubbornness. Part of it was proving them wrong, over and over. That is also about status.
50. 07:38
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    I kept publishing. Even the smaller papers, the ones that didn't matter so much. Because I liked seeing my name in the journals. Because it meant I was still relevant. Still Einstein.
51. 07:48
    Marie Curieshare moment

    We tell ourselves stories about why we did things. Noble stories. But underneath, we also wanted what everyone wants. To matter. To be remembered. To have them finally admit we belonged.
52. 08:01
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Yes. And maybe that's all right. Maybe we can be honest about it now.
53. 08:04
    Marie Curieshare moment

    Now that we're dead and it can't hurt us anymore.
54. 08:07
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Now that we're dead, yes. Though I think it would have been better to be honest while we were living. To say, 'I want this. I am working for this. Not just for pure science or pure principle, but because I am ambitious and human.'
55. 08:19
    Marie Curieshare moment

    They would never have let me into the laboratory if I had said that.
56. 08:23
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    No. Probably not. And that is the problem, isn't it? That we had to pretend not to want what we wanted. Had to make it seem like service or curiosity or duty. When really, we also just wanted them to see us.
57. 08:36
    Marie Curieshare moment

    To see us, and to step aside.
58. 08:37
    Albert Einsteinshare moment

    Yes. To step aside and let us work. Whatever it took.
59. 08:41
    Marie Curieshare moment

    Whatever it took.