The Curies PDF Download

Author: Denis Brian
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
Focusing on the lives and relationships behind their magnificent careers, The Curies is the first biography to trace the entire Curie dynasty, from Pierre and Marie’s fruitful union and achievements to the lives and accomplishments of their two daughters, Irène and Eve, and son-in-law Frederic Joliot-Curie. Biographer Denis Brian digs deep beneath the headlines and legends to reveal the Curies’ multigenerational saga in its entirety, featuring new, never-before-published personal information as well as newly revealed correspondence and diary excerpts. Brimming with endearing and often amusing anecdotes about this much-misunderstood clan, The Curies reveals a family as closely intertwined in their private lives as they were in their professional endeavors.

Author:
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9789810234065
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
A collection of the Nobel Lectures delivered by the prizewinners in chemistry, together with their biographies, portraits and the presentation speeches.

Author: Winifred Conkling
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616206411
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
The fascinating, little-known story of how two brilliant female physicists’ groundbreaking discoveries led to the creation of the atomic bomb. In 1934, Irène Curie, working with her husband and fellow scientist, Frederic Joliot, made a discovery that would change the world: artificial radioactivity. This breakthrough allowed scientists to modify elements and create new ones by altering the structure of atoms. Curie shared a Nobel Prize with her husband for their work. But when she was nominated to the French Academy of Sciences, the academy denied her admission and voted to disqualify all women from membership. Four years later, Curie’s breakthrough led physicist Lise Meitner to a brilliant leap of understanding that unlocked the secret of nuclear fission. Meitner’s unique insight was critical to the revolution in science that led to nuclear energy and the race to build the atom bomb, yet her achievement was left unrecognized by the Nobel committee in favor of that of her male colleague. Radioactive! presents the story of two women breaking ground in a male-dominated field, scientists still largely unknown despite their crucial contributions to cutting-edge research, in a nonfiction narrative that reads with the suspense of a thriller. Photographs and sidebars illuminate and clarify the science in the book.

Author: Eve Curie
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 0307819124
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 519

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Book Description
Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867–1934) was the first woman scientist to win worldwide acclaim and was, indeed, one of the great scientists of the twentieth century. Written by Curie’s daughter, the renowned international activist Eve Curie, this biography chronicles Curie’s legendary achievements in science, including her pioneering efforts in the study of radioactivity and her two Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry. It also spotlights her remarkable life, from her childhood in Poland, to her storybook Parisian marriage to fellow scientist Pierre Curie, to her tragic death from the very radium that brought her fame.

Author: Sam Kean
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316381667
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes the gripping, untold story of a renegade group of scientists and spies determined to keep Adolf Hitler from obtaining the ultimate prize: a nuclear bomb. Scientists have always kept secrets. But rarely have the secrets been as vital as they were during World War II. In the middle of building an atomic bomb, the leaders of the Manhattan Project were alarmed to learn that Nazi Germany was far outpacing the Allies in nuclear weapons research. Hitler, with just a few pounds of uranium, would have the capability to reverse the entire D-Day operation and conquer Europe. So they assembled a rough and motley crew of geniuses -- dubbed the Alsos Mission -- and sent them careening into Axis territory to spy on, sabotage, and even assassinate members of Nazi Germany's feared Uranium Club. The details of the mission rival the finest spy thriller, but what makes this story sing is the incredible cast of characters -- both heroes and rogues alike -- including: Moe Bergm, the major league catcher who abandoned the game for a career as a multilingual international spy; the strangest fellow to ever play professional baseball. Werner Heisenberg, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist credited as the discoverer of quantum mechanics; a key contributor to the Nazi's atomic bomb project and the primary target of the Alsos mission. Colonel Boris Pash, a high school science teacher and veteran of the Russian Revolution who fled the Soviet Union with a deep disdain for Communists and who later led the Alsos mission. Joe Kennedy Jr., the charismatic, thrill-seeking older brother of JFK whose need for adventure led him to volunteer for the most dangerous missions the Navy had to offer. Samuel Goudsmit, a washed-up physics prodigy who spent his life hunting Nazi scientists -- and his parents, who had been swept into a concentration camp -- across the globe. Irène and Frederic Joliot-Curie, a physics Nobel-Prize winning power couple who used their unassuming status as scientists to become active members of the resistance. Thrust into the dark world of international espionage, these scientists and soldiers played a vital and largely untold role in turning back one of the darkest tides in human history.

Author: Giuseppe Mussardo
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030551695
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Science, with its inherent tension between the known and the unknown, is an inexhaustible mine of great stories. Collected here are twenty-six among the most enchanting tales, one for each letter of the alphabet: the main characters are scientists of the highest caliber most of whom, however, are unknown to the general public. This book goes from A to Z. The letter A stands for Abel, the great Norwegian mathematician, here involved in an elliptic thriller about a fundamental theorem of mathematics, while the letter Z refers to Absolute Zero, the ultimate and lowest temperature limit, - 273,15 degrees Celsius, a value that is tremendously cooler than the most remote corner of the Universe: the race to reach this final outpost of coldness is not yet complete, but, similarly to the history books of polar explorations at the beginning of the 20th century, its pages record successes, failures, fierce rivalries and tragic desperations. In between the A and the Z, the other letters of the alphabet are similar to the various stages of a very fascinating journey along the paths of science, a journey in the company of a very unique set of characters as eccentric and peculiar as those in Ulysses by James Joyce: the French astronomer who lost everything, even his mind, to chase the transits of Venus; the caustic Austrian scientist who, perfectly at ease with both the laws of psychoanalysis and quantum mechanics, revealed the hidden secrets of dreams and the periodic table of chemical elements; the young Indian astrophysicist who was the first to understand how a star dies, suffering the ferocious opposition of his mentor for this discovery. Or the Hungarian physicist who struggled with his melancholy in the shadows of the desert of Los Alamos; or the French scholar who was forced to hide her femininity behind a false identity so as to publish fundamental theorems on prime numbers. And so on and so forth. Twenty-six stories, which reveal the most authentic atmosphere of science and the lives of some of its main players: each story can be read in quite a short period of time -- basically the time it takes to get on and off the train between two metro stations. Largely independent from one another, these twenty-six stories make the book a harmonious polyphony of several voices: the reader can invent his/her own very personal order for the chapters simply by ordering the sequence of letters differently. For an elementary law of Mathematics, this can give rise to an astronomically large number of possible books -- all the same, but - then again - all different. This book is therefore the ideal companion for an infinite number of real or metaphoric journeys.

Author: Annette Lykknes
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9811206309
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 556

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Book Description
2019 celebrated the 150th anniversary of Mendeleev's first publication of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. This book offers an original viewpoint on the history of the Periodic Table: a collective volume with short illustrated papers on women and their contribution to the building and the understanding of the Periodic Table and of the elements themselves. Few existing texts deal with women's contributions to the Periodic Table. A book on women's work not only helps make historical women chemists more visible; it also sheds light on the multifaceted character of the work on the chemical elements and their periodic relationships. Stories of female input contribute to the understanding of the nature of science, of collaboration as opposed to the traditional depiction of the lone genius.While the discovery of elements is a natural part of this collective work, the book goes beyond discovery histories. Stories of women contributors to the chemistry of the elements also include understanding the concept of element, identifying properties, developing analytical methods, mapping the radioactive series, finding applications of elements, and the participation of women as audiences when new elements were presented at lectures.The book contains chapters on pre-periodic table contributions as well as recent discoveries, unknown stories as well as more famous ones, with an emphasis on work conducted in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Elements from different groups in the periodic table are included, so as to represent a variety of chemical contexts.

Author: Françoise Giroud
Publisher: Holmes & Meier Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Perhaps the most illustrious women of her era, Marie Curie is well-known for her Nobel Prize-winning research in physics and chemistry and for her discovery with husband Pierre of polonium and radium. Less familiar is the complex character of this renowned woman. While grounding her work in a historical context, the author provides a fresh human perspective on the life of this famous yet enigmatic precursor of today's atomic scientists.

Author: Naomi Pasachoff
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198025254
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
Marie Curie discovered radium and went on to lead the scientific community in studying the theory behind and the uses of radioactivity. She left a vast legacy to future scientists through her research, her teaching, and her contributions to the welfare of humankind. She was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, yet upon her death in 1934, Albert Einstein was moved to say, "Marie Curie is, of all celebrated beings, the only one whom fame has not corrupted." She was a physicist, a wife and mother, and a groundbreaking professional woman. This biography is an inspirational and exciting story of scientific discovery and personal commitment. Oxford Portraits in Science is an on-going series of scientific biographies for young adults. Written by top scholars and writers, each biography examines the personality of its subject as well as the thought process leading to his or her discoveries. These illustrated biographies combine accessible technical information with compelling personal stories to portray the scientists whose work has shaped our understanding of the natural world.

Author: Susan Quinn
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
Marie Curie was long idealized as a selfless and dedicated scientist, not entirely of this world. But Quinn's Marie Curie is, on the contrary, a woman of passion — born in Warsaw under the repressive regime of the Russian czars, outspokenly committed to the cause of a free Poland, deeply in love with her husband Pierre but also, after his tragic death, capable of loving a second time and of standing up against the cruel, xenophobic attacks which resulted from that love. This biography gives a full and lucid account of Marie and Pierre Curie’s scientific discoveries, placing them within the revelatory discoveries of the age. At the same time, it provides a vivid account of Marie Curie’s practical genius: the X-Ray mobiles she created to save French soldiers' lives during World War I, as well as her remarkable ability to raise funds and create a laboratory that drew researchers to Paris from all over the world. It is a story which transforms Marie Curie from an bloodless icon into a woman of passion and courage. "Quinn's portrait of Curie is rich and captivating. Quinn strives to peel back... layers of myth and idealization that have grown up around the physicist... She succeeds beautifully. Quinn has written a worthy successor to her previous work, the award-winning biography of American psychiatrist Karen Horney." — Washington Post Book World (page 1) "A touching, three-dimensional portrait of the Polish-born scientist and two-time Nobel Prize winner." — Kirkus "I've read many biographies of Marie Curie and Susan Quinn's is magnificent. It's so complete and so evocative that I can't imagine anyone coming away from reading it without feeling they actually know Marie Curie." — Alan Alda "Quinn portrays a woman who was both independent and ambitious, in a society that was unprepared for either. The result is a fresh, powerful new biography of a very human Marie Curie... This is an exemplary work, rich in the details and connections that bring a person and her era to life. It is certain to be this generations' definitive biography of Marie Curie." — Science "Quinn breaks ground in her detailed description, drawn from newly available papers, of Marie's life after Pierre's accidental death in 1906. At first so grief-stricken she neglected her two daughters, Irene and Eve, Marie later had a love affair with French scientist Paul Langevin. Because Langevin was married, Marie was vilified by the French press and was almost denied the 1911 Nobel Prize for chemistry." —Publishers Weekly "Susan Quinn's excellent biography gives a lucid account of Curie's contribution to our understanding of 'things'... but Quinn also draws on new material to paint a more rounded and attractive picture of Curie the person... For Marie, the enchantment of her science never waned, and it is this enchantment which Quinn's biography communicates so well." — London Observer