Compiled and edited by Chen Yong
[Continued]
Chapter Six: Doing what you love is not enough for a lifetime
6-1 Dream of home country in a small body
As we all know, Marie Curie was born in Poland during the Period of Russian Occupation. Living in a ruled, invaded country, the sensitive Mary felt oppressed from an early age. I believe that many people can empathize with this.
Usually, Mary felt that the Polish nation was treated as a third-class citizen and oppressed everywhere. Mentally, their schools were under the close surveillance of the Tsar, and the content of their daily studies was also strictly controlled. There are also inspectors representing the government who come to raid from time to time, and teachers and children are always in a state of mental tension. Mary was often scrutinized by Mr. Inspector, and for her to cope with such a check was a form of torture. So Mary recognized early on that life was cruel, for the nation, and for the individual.
As the saying goes, where there is oppression, there is resistance, and Mary's bones inherit the spirit of resistance of the Skovodowska family. During this time, Mary was impressed by the practice of patriotic teachers secretly teaching children about Poland, such as history and geography.
In 1891, Mary quit her job as a governess, and she had almost saved enough to study in Paris. This time, she planned to spend a few months with her hometown in Warsaw and then go to Paris. But by chance, Mary joined the local youth learning group.
Regardless of the nation, in that era, youth always represented a group of people with blood and passion. Poland at the end of the 19th century was no exception. It was an ordinary midsummer afternoon, and Mary and her friends gathered in a theater on the northern outskirts of Warsaw that was no longer open for business. Her gray eyes stared intently at the young man on the stage who was speaking.
Upon hearing the young man's excited expression, he said, "Dear students, the hope of the motherland rests on the improvement of the people's knowledge level and the strengthening of moral concepts, and only in this way can the status of our motherland in the world be enhanced." Our first task at the present time is to strive for self-study and to disseminate knowledge as much as possible among the workers and peasants. Hearing this, Mary and her friends clapped together. These young people feel the same way.
This group of young people living in the land occupied by the Tsar's aggression formed this politically tinged learning group for the sake of their homeland. Just as the so-called aspirations are not in high age, this group of young people will serve the society and serve the motherland as their task. To this end, they decided that everyone would use the evening to teach the masses what they were proficient in order to spread knowledge.
Mary has her own understanding of this, she said to everyone: "If it is not for everyone in society who is well educated and has good qualities, a good society cannot be established." In order to achieve this beautiful goal, all people must improve themselves, share social responsibility, do their best to devote themselves to their own work, and effectively help others, so that we feel that our lives are more valuable. ”
In a chaotic world, still able to care about her home country, Mary's outlook on life and values are sincerely admirable. No wonder even Einstein wrote for her.
Because of such ideals and pursuits, Mary has strengthened her determination to study and further study. She knew that only in this way could she make useful contributions to the motherland and society.
When she first came to Paris to study, Mary could only live in a small attic, living a life of lack of food and clothing. But she seems to be enjoying it, like Confucius's student Yan Hui, "a bowl of rice, a scoop of water, living in a simple alley, people worried about his livelihood, but he has always been able to keep his happiness without changing." I think that in addition to the love and pursuit of talent, what supports her heart should be the dream of this home country.
It is also because of this dream that Mary has been working in the front line of teaching after graduation, and even if the laboratory is busy, she still goes to the Faculty of Science every day. Mary in the classroom is like an elf of knowledge, and she will satisfy the thirsty souls under the podium in a relaxed and pleasant way.
It was also because of this dream that when Marie and Pierre overcame many difficulties and even paid the price of health to discover and extract the radioactive material radium, she did not make this scientific discovery private, but dedicated it to the country and society free of charge, so that they could serve all mankind. As Gorky said, "The fruits of scientists are the property of all mankind, and science is the most selfless field." And Mary has always believed that the basic requirement of scientific research should be "not about fame and fortune."
I have to say that it is the dream of the home country that makes Mary a brilliant sun in adversity, and she has also made her own contribution to human society with her knowledge.
6-2 contributed a lifetime to science
On the morning of July 3, 1934, Marie Curie, who had been bedridden for a long time, had entered the dying moment. She took out the thermometer as she had done yesterday, and seeing that the number shown on it had been lowered, she was pleased, and a long-lost smile appeared on her face. But it wasn't long before she didn't feel well, groaning in pain and sighing with regret: "My job isn't done yet... I can't say what I mean anymore..."
However, at this time, Mary did not think of any of her relatives, her mind was full of work-related matters, only to hear her intermittently say: "The segments of each chapter should be the same... I've been thinking about this publication..." She was talking about the ongoing editing of the Radioactive work.
As soon as she looked back at the teacup on the bedside table, she reached out and picked up the teaspoon and stirred it in it, and asked in her mouth, "Is this made of radium, or is it made of thorium?" When the doctor couldn't bear to give her an injection, Mary shouted with her last strength: "I don't want to, I hope not to disturb me." ”
Looking at Marie Curie, who was weakened by the pain, she did not change her true love and faith until her death. Everyone present was moved.
At this point, what was Marie Curie thinking? Was it the first time she'd seen the throbbing of a physical instrument? Or the excitement of entering a formal lab for the first time? We don't know.
To be sure, Marie Curie must have thought of her scientific "children"—polonium and radium. She was an energetic young girl, and her husband Pierre Curie, in the absence of experimental equipment and raw materials, had to extract the slag they had bought from the simple laboratory converted from the horse barn.
How many times did Marie Curie put her hand into the raw material bag, hold out several pounds of slag, put it in the basin, and then put the basin on the stove to dissolve, filter, precipitate, collect, and then dissolve, bleach the clear liquid on the upper layer of the solution, and then measure it. After that, she needed to start over.
Sometimes she needs to use an iron rod that is almost as tall as herself all day to stir the boiling slag. It was hard to imagine how this thin woman could carry such a heavy workload, and the accumulated work had left her exhausted and exhausted. But when she wakes up, she will be resurrected with blood and continue to work as a cow and a horse in the laboratory.
Fortunately, kung fu pays off. Three years later, the Curies refined the radioactive material polonium and a radium with a small glass tube. Marie Curie eagerly gazed at the tiny glass container with a slight blue fluorescence, which became the most beautiful picture of Mary as a physicist.
In the decades that followed, Marie Curie went from being a beautiful little girl to a dignified and determined female scholar, and finally becoming the mother of the new term "radiation" in science textbooks. The hardships are imaginable, and what we can't imagine is the sacrifice that Marie Curie made for the study of radioactivity.
Due to the long-term research of radioactive substances, coupled with the harsh experimental environment and the lack of strict protection of the body, often invaded by radioactive elements, Marie Curie's blood was gradually damaged and suffered from leukemia. At the same time, she also suffers from lung disease, eye disease and other conditions.
However, in Marie Curie's view, scientific research was more important than her own health. In order to attend the World Physics Congress, she asked doctors to postpone kidney surgery; she also returned to China to attend the opening ceremony of the Radium Research Institute; and she endured the fear of blindness in her eyes and tenaciously conducted scientific research.
Until the last breath of her life, due to pernicious anemia and high fever, when she lay in bed, she still remembered her experiments and writings. It can be said that life is endless and the struggle is not stopped. Marie Curie finally dedicated her life to her ideals and love.
It can be said that Marie Curie left to posterity not only a scientific legacy, but also a spiritual model for the unswerving pursuit of her own talent and love and the creation of the value of her own life.
A reporter once asked this question in an interview with Marie Curie: "What do you think is the meaning of life?" Marie Curie said: "We should not waste our lives, we should be able to say, 'I have done what I can do.'" "Yes, she has contributed her life to science, realized her love and pursuit, lived out her own wonderful life, and truly achieved no waste. It's worth learning from each and every one of us.
As Einstein wrote in his eulogy to Marie Curie: "When a noble figure like Marie Curie ends her life, we should not be satisfied with merely recalling the contribution that the fruits of her work have made to humanity." The significance of first-rate figures to the epoch and to the course of history may be greater in their moral qualities than in the mere achievement of intellect, and even the latter depends on the degree of character, perhaps more than is usually thought. I was fortunate to have twenty years of noble and sincere friendship with Mrs. Juri. I grew in admiration for the greatness of her personality. Her strength, the purity of her will, her self-discipline, her objectivity, her impartial judgment—all of this is rarely concentrated in one person. ”
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