#The Elements of Marie Curie

[justforbooks]

The Elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel

A fresh and feminist study of the pioneering Nobel laureate reveals her impact on the women she mentored and set on the path to prominence

Marie Curie carried out some of her most pathbreaking work under an actual glass ceiling and the toxic particles that swirled beneath it eventually killed her. What Dava Sobel wants to convey to us in this unabashedly feminist account of the great woman’s life is that the metaphorical glass ceiling was just as toxic to the society over which it was clamped.

Each occasion the two-time Nobel laureate had a new advance to announce to the world, she had to beg a male colleague to present it to France’s scientific academy, which barred women from its ranks. This iron-clad rule outlived Curie, hobbling her daughter Irène – another Nobel laureate – in her turn, and by the time a woman was finally granted full membership, in 1979, not only were both Marie and Irène more famous than most of the men who had blocked them, but that first female member gave her affiliation as the “Pierre and Marie Curie University”, Paris.

The academy couldn’t even claim that Marie was riding on her husband’s coat-tails, since Pierre had died tragically early in their marriage and she went on to great things – including a second Nobel prize – alone. A true scientist, she was never really alone, though. There were individual men – Pierre first among them – who recognised her brilliance and whose support for her never faltered. The physicist Paul Langevin, briefly her lover once she had been widowed, remained loyal long after the affair and accompanying scandal had fizzled out. That much we knew. What wasn’t so well known, and which Sobel brings out in her new biography, is that Curie created her own school and that many of those she mentored and set on the path to prominence were women. Each of those women inspired many others, in a radioactive cascade that would have lit up one of Irène’s cherished cloud chambers.

These were, necessarily, unconventional careers – and all the more inspiring for that. It’s hard to imagine a young woman arriving in France or any western country today, as Marie Skłodowska did in 1891, penniless, lacking a university degree, barely speaking the local lingo and going on to win a Nobel prize just over a decade later – and credit must go to the institutions and individuals who made that possible. There were women who passed through the Curie lab whose discoveries were feted around the world before they had obtained their baccalaureate, let alone a PhD. These “laboratory daughters” were fiercely loyal to Curie, and when her real daughter showed intellectual promise, she assembled a version of the “flying university” that she had benefited from in her youth in Russian-occupied Warsaw to help realise that promise. Irène was home schooled by some of the most respected thinkers of their generation. This is how scientific dynasties are born.

There were enough holes in the periodic table in the early 20th century to keep Curie in the lab for several lifetimes, but she didn’t hesitate to step outside it when the world called. The first world war having created a demand for mobile X-ray units, she built the units and learned to drive, then enlisted the ever-willing Irène as her aide-de-camp. If the book has a fault, it’s that the world doesn’t get the same attention to detail as Dmitri Mendeleev’s brilliant ordering of the elements. In the spring of 1919, the Curies’ otherwise healthy second daughter, Ève, came down with double pneumonia, aged 14. Sobel doesn’t mention that this happened against the backdrop of a flu pandemic – a disaster that claimed many more lives than the war.

Overall, though, her short and well-paced book succeeds in dispelling the dust that clings to some accounts of this most famous of lives and makes it fresh again. Her explanations of the science allow the reader to grasp how one experiment led logically to the next in the search for radioactive elements and particles, and to puzzle or rejoice with the scientists as the results come in. Their thirst for knowledge might have come close to an addiction, because even after they knew how toxic their workspace was, they were drawn ineluctably back into it.

They paid the price. We knew that too, but perhaps not to what extent. In an appendix entitled The Radioactivists, Sobel provides potted biographies of the dramatis personae. It’s shocking how many died of the effects of radiation exposure – effects that were sometimes recognised at the time, sometimes only later – and of course they weren’t the only ones. But then there were the countless others whose lives were saved or prolonged thanks to Curie’s discoveries – as well as the discoveries of the many women (and some men) who, but for her, would never have seen the inside of a lab.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[woodelf68]

I got 48, which I was extremely pleased with, considering the last time I looked at a periodic table was in 7th grade science class, which I did not do so well in. There were probably about ten more I should have got, including the two which I KNEW were in there, but I didn't know what kind of ending to stick on the main word. (Like I knew it was fluor- something, and roentgen- something, but failed at getting the right suffix).

We all had fun with geography class now onto science! take this quiz to name as many elements as you can :)

obligatory rb for sample size <3

[seasonplacko1973blog]

[sad-boys-book-club]

"&" Ampersand - A Literary Companion

Selected stories with the themes of Bastille's upcoming project "&" Ampersand. And, of course, a love letter to my favourite band.

PART 1

Intros & Narrators: Wallace, David Foster. Oblivion: Stories. Little, Brown and Company, 2004./ Nancherla, Aparna. Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Impostor Syndrome. Penguin Publishing Group, 2023.// Eve & Paradise Lost: Bohannon, Cat. Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2023. / Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Alma Classics, 2019.// Emily & Her Penthouse In The Sky: Dickinson, Emily. Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them. Harvard University Press, 2016. /Dickinson, Emily. Emily Dickinson: Letters. Edited by Emily Fragos, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011.// Blue Sky & The Painter: Prideaux, Sue. Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream. Yale University Press, 2019. / Knausgaard, Karl Ove. So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch. Random House, 2019.//

PART 2

Leonard & Marianne: Hesthamar, Kari. So Long, Marianne: A Love Story - Includes Rare Material by Leonard Cohen. Ecw Press, 2014./ Cohen, Leonard. Book of Longing. Penguin Books Limited, 2007.// Marie & Polonium: Curie, Eve. Madame Curie. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013./Sobel, Dava. The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024.// Red Wine & Wilde: Wilde, Oscar, et al. De Profundis. Harry N. Abrams, 1998./ Sturgis, Matthew. Oscar: A Life. Head of Zeus, 2018.// Seasons & Narcissus: Ovid. Metamorphoses: A New Verse Translation. Penguin, 2004./ Morales, Helen. Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myths. PublicAffairs, 2020.//

PART 3

Drawbridge & The Baroness: Rothschild, Hannah. The Baroness: The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013./ Katz, Judy H. White Awareness: Handbook for Anti-racism Training. University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.// The Soprano & Her Midnight Wonderings: Ardoin, John, and Gerald Fitzgerald. Callas: The Art and the Life. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974./ Abramovic, Marina. 7 Deaths of Maria Callas. Damiani, 2020.// Essie & Paul: Ransby, Barbara. Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson. Haymarket Books, 2022./ Robeson, Paul. Here I Stand. Beacon Press, 1998.//

PART 4

Mademoiselle & The Nunnery Blaze: Gautier, Theophile. Mademoiselle de Maupin. Penguin Classics, n.d./ Gardiner, Kelly. Goddess. HarperCollins, 2014.// Zheng Yi Sao & Questions For Her: Chang-Eppig, Rita. Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023./ Borges, Jorge Luis. A Universal History of Infamy. Penguin Books, 1975. // Telegraph Road 1977 & 2024: Kaufman, Bob. Golden Sardine. City Lights Books, 1976./ Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Pan Macmillan Australia Pty, Limited, 2008.

Original artwork created by Theo Hersey & Dan Smith. Printed letterpress at The Typography Workshop, South London.

[marauderswolf22]

Instead of a normal tag game im often doing, let's do this because im so tired of this as a pole myself

This woman is Maria Skłodowska-Curie, not Marie Curie. She was polish, she was born in Warsaw. After she married her husband she kept her maiden name because she loved poland and wanted to be known as a polish female scientist. She made sure to learn her daughters polish. She named one of the two elements she discovered polonium after her homeland!!!

Calling her french, not saying her maiden name (okay I know it can be hard to pronouce but just try to say sklodowska), changing her name for it to sound french, it's like you're erasing a part of her, a part that was so important to her. Most of her life Poland was not even on the maps, it didn't theoretically exist under partitions. She was growing up in a time that was full of romantic patriotism. During the first world war she helped to train polish nurses, she wanted to help her country with the knowledge she had.

In 1915, she signed, along with Henryk Sienkiewicz (a famous polish writer) and Ignacy Jan Paderewski (pianist and social activist/civic leader (i can't find the right word)), a proclamation published in the press calling for contributions to the General Committee for Aid to War Victims in Poland, founded in Vevey.

After the war, when poland was reborn, she wrote a letter to her brother saying: “So, born in slavery, fertilized in the womb, we will see the rebirth of our homeland that we dreamed of. We had no hope that we would see this moment ourselves, we thought that maybe our children would see it. But this moment has come for us. Like you, I believe in our future"

During her stay in the USA, Maria used her collected money to buy a gram of radium, which was very expensive at that time, and donated it to Poland so that the Radium Institute in Warsaw could be launched. She did much more, but I listed just this.

Please stop trying to erase her origin, disconnect her country from her

im tagging so that more people can read this, im constantly seeing "Marie Curie" and i hope i can change it even just a little (and it's a no pressure tag ofc): @vellichorius @brokendoor16 @crikey01 @kurt-cobain-is-jesus-in-disguise @midnights-dragon

[forsoobado137]

The anon from the country-people getting hurt again!

1) thank you for the compliment on my English:D

2) can't imagine being in a coma for so long is fun rip Feliks

3) While yes Poland as a country wasn't there but people still learned polish and tried to keep the nation alive in any way possible

Examples cuz I'm a nerd:

- one of the books called "Syzyfowe pracę (Sisyphean labors)" by Stefan Żeromski is autobiographical novel which described the school life under Russian occupation. One of the scenes I remember of off the top of my head is that in school children were secretly being taught Polish and one of the teachers had to stand guard outside the classroom

- Maria Skłodowska-Curie kept (most of the times) signing her name as Skłodowska-Curie and named the element she discovered Polonium. Poles often get annoyed when people just say Maria Curie because it erases the polish heritage she had and (most likely) tried to keep alive by signing with her maiden name and the name of the element, yes she was a french citizen but Poland wasn't on the map back then so she had to do it that way (<- dunno if I'm making sense sorry if not)

There are many other examples but that's not the point I'm trying to make. Back to Hetalia, I like to think that Feliks wasn't in a coma but lived in hiding, quietly fighting among humans, teaching the language and helping as much as he could. Of course he would have been much weaker, maybe chronically sick? (Which is what I head canon is happening to Gilbert, chronically sick and pretty weak) After all he was only alive in the hearts of his people

Personally, I like the idea of him being presumed dead, I mean most people wouldn't think a country that got wiped from the map 3 times one time for over 100 years would came back and yet here he was, sick yet still standing

I'm polish so that's why I'm so into it lol sorry for the long read but I just really love thinking what happens to nation-people when the nation is basically gone -✨Anon (<- naming myself in case I will want to write in again lol)

Wow, thank you for the history info! Especially about Marie Skłodowska-Curie. I will definitely call her that from now on. Thank you, ✨ Anon!

And I like the idea of Feliks being chronically sick instead of a coma. He is very resilient, and I think that he was in a similar situation to Gilbert now, where he lost most/all of his healing powers.

So that also means he was probably dodging assassination attempts left and right! God damn, Poland!

[chronicbeans]

Hazbin Hotel Rewrite - Charlie/Rebecca's and Baxter's Rooms

A little explanation of what they're rooms look like and, for Baxter, how his room works.

Charlie/Rebecca's Room: They share a room, which is split right down the middle in design. Rebecca's side is filled with a nice blue, white, and silver color scheme. There's a lot of plushies, a few punk and goth style posters and makeup sets, and a slight icy sheen over the window on her side. The walls on her side of the room is a baby blue. Charlie's is filled with a gold, red, orange and black color scheme. It has a lot of flowers in pots, particularly roses and poppies. She has a few fidget toys, as well, which she keeps next to her flower makeup bag. The walls on her side of the room are pastel yellow, and the windows feel a lot warmer to the touch on her side. The bed is in the middle of the room, with the blanket's colors being split right down the middle between baby blue and pastel yellow. A lot of people they let in say that standing in the middle of the room is most comfortable temperature wise, with Rebecca's side being too cold and Charlie's too hot. They're room is on the top floor.

Baxter's Room: It's in the basement. Charlie didn't know exactly how to handle someone who is radioactive, and out of fear that the radioactive particles would sink into the other floors if he was on a higher floor of the hotel, she decided to refurbish the basement into being his room and lab. He then added a decontamination room in the small hallway between the stairs and his room to make sure any radiation doesn't leave his room by sticking to the hazmat suits. His actual room is constantly dark, besides the radioactive particles glowing. The design fits a deep sea floor aesthetic, with a few lava lamps around the room mimicking bubbles and tall, dying indoor plants mimicking seaweed. By his bed, which is an antique hospital bed so that he can raise the head of it to get out, there's a lot of posters of Marie Curie. There's also a lot of empty space by his bed so he can park his wheelchair, as well as railings lining the walls of his room to help him move around. Because his room is extremely big due to just being the entire basement, half of it is taken up by his lab. In his lab, there's a lot of fish tanks, boxes full of radioactive elements and materials, and his medications.

Side note: Baxter constantly complains about the fact that a lot of the hotel is inaccessible for him, which includes the fact that to leave his room and enter the rest of the hotel, he needs to climb stairs while carrying his wheelchair. The same goes for entering and exiting the hotel itself, since there's no ramp.

[prozerpina2001]

After Beetlejuice Beetlejuice I just had a flashback of reading „Chain of thorns” for the first time and experiencing a huge, feminist rage caused by Maria Skłodowska-Curie being refered to as Marie Curie (the author @cassandraclare couldn’t even got her name right? C’mon, do a research!). The west world erasing the fact that Maria (not „Marie”) was Polish is such a big problem. It’s not only xenophobic, because for some reason people can’t accept that a Polish scientist could be that successful, but also misogynistic, since you’re trying to belittle her and make everything about her being a wife of a FRENCH MAN. Her being married didn’t stop the undeniable fact that she was Polish and she named one of the chemical elements POLONIUM (clearly after her freaking homeland), not Frenchonium (lol). Her wish was to be remembered as a Polish scientist who couldn’t live and study in her own country, because it was occupied by Prussia, Austria and Russia for 123 years.

So her being admired by both Christopher Lightwood and Astrid and also being called the FEMINIST ICON while constantly getting both her name, surname and nationality (not citizenship) wrong is such a disgusting joke. I had enough.

I know that the only people who care are Polish, but I’m so tired and bitter about this. If you can’t even remeber her name (Maria SKŁODOWSKA-Curie, that’s not so difficult!), then don’t call yourself feminist, that’s a hypocrisy 🤣 Or just leave her alone, that poor woman doesn’t deserve such a treatment.

Again, I’m just very tired and bitter about this whole thing. If you want to call me out on this, I will just block you. I don’t have enough strenght and time and will to fight in Internet. Enough Poles tried to educate others. Just go read Wikipedia (oh right, most of the versions couldn’t get her name right) or something.

[thoughtportal]

The Congo’s role in creating the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was kept secret for decades, but the legacy of its involvement is still being felt today.

“The word Shinkolobwe fills me with grief and sorrow,” says Susan Williams, a historian at the UK Institute of Commonwealth Studies. “It’s not a happy word, it’s one I associate with terrible grief and suffering.”

Few people know what, or even where, Shinkolobwe is. But this small mine in the southern province of Katanga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), played a part in one of the most violent and devastating events in history.

More than 7,500 miles away, on 6 August, bells will toll across Hiroshima, Japan, to mark 75 years since the atomic bomb fell on the city. Dignitaries and survivors will gather to remember those who died in the blast and resulting radioactive fallout. Thousands of lanterns carrying messages of peace will be set afloat on the Motoyasu River. Three days later, similar commemorations will be held in Nagasaki.

No such ceremony will take place in the DRC. Yet both nations are inextricably linked by the atomic bomb, the effects of which are still being felt to this day.

The Shinkolobwe mine – named after a kind of boiled apple that would leave a burn if squeezed – was the source for nearly all of the uranium used in the Manhattan Project, culminating with the construction of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945.

But the story of the mine didn’t end with the bombs. Its contribution to the Little Boy and Fat Man has shaped the DRC’s ruinous political history and civil wars over the decades that followed. Even today the mine’s legacy can still be seen in the health of the communities who live near it.

“It’s an ongoing tragedy,” says Williams, who has examined the role of Shinkolobwe in her book Spies in the Congo. She believes there needs to be greater recognition of how the exploitation and desire to control the mine’s contents by Western powers played a role in the country’s troubles.

Mombilo too is campaigning to raise awareness of the role played by the Congo in deciding the outcome of World War Two, as well as the burden it still carries because of this. In 2016, the CCSSA’s Missing Link forum brought together activists, historians, analysts, and children of those affected by the atomic bomb, both from Japan and from the DR Congo. “We are planning to bring back the history of Shinkolobwe, so we can make the world know,” says Mombilo.

Out of Africa

The story of Shinkolobwe began when a rich seam of uranium was discovered there in 1915, while the Congo was under colonial rule by Belgium. There was little demand for uranium back then: its mineral form is known as pitchblende, from a German phrase describing it as a worthless rock. Instead, the land was mined by the Belgian company Union Minière for its traces of radium, a valuable element that had been recently isolated by Marie and Pierre Curie.  

In no other mine could you see a purer concentration of uranium. Nothing like it has ever been found – Tom Zoellner

It was only when nuclear fission was discovered in 1938 that the potential of uranium became apparent. After hearing about the discovery, Albert Einstein immediately wrote to US president Franklin D Roosevelt, advising him that the element could be used to generate a colossal amount of energy – even to construct powerful bombs. In 1942, US military strategists decided to buy as much uranium as they could to pursue what became known as the Manhattan Project. And while mines existed in Colorado and Canada, nowhere in the world had as much uranium as the Congo.

“The geology of Shinkolobwe is described as a freak of nature,” says Tom Zoellner, who visited Shinkolobwe in the course of writing Uranium – War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World. “In no other mine could you see a purer concentration of uranium. Nothing like it has ever been found.”

In a deal with Union Minière – negotiated by the British, who owned a 30% interest in the company – the US secured 1,200 tonnes of Congolese uranium, which was stockpiled on Staten Island, US, and an additional 3,000 tonnes that was stored above ground at the mine in Shinkolobwe. But it was not enough. US Army engineers were dispatched to drain the mine, which had fallen into disuse, and bring it back into production.

Under Belgian rule, Congolese workers toiled day and night in the open pit, sending hundreds of tonnes of uranium ore to the US every month. “Shinkolobwe decided who would be the next leader of the world,” says Mombilo. “Everything started there.”

All of this was carried out under a blanket of secrecy, so as not to alert Axis powers about the existence of the Manhattan Project. Shinkolobwe was erased from maps, and spies sent to the region to sow deliberate disinformation about what was taking place there. Uranium was referred to as “gems”, or simply “raw material”. The word Shinkolobwe was never to be uttered.

This secrecy was maintained long after the end of the war. “Efforts were made to give the message that the uranium came from Canada, as a way of deflecting attention away from the Congo,” says Williams. The effort was so thorough, she says, that the belief the atomic bombs were built with Canadian uranium persists to this day. Although some of the uranium came from Bear Lake in Canada – about 907 tonnes (1,000 tons) are thought to have been supplied by the Eldorado mining company – and a mine in Colorado, the majority came from the Congo. Some of the uranium from the Congo was also refined in Canada before being shipped to the US.

Western powers wanted to ensure that any government presiding over Shinkolobwe remained friendly to their interests

After the war, however, Shinkolobwe emerged as a proxy ground in the Cold War. Improved enrichment techniques made Western powers less dependent on the uranium at Shinkolobwe. But in order to curtail other nations’ nuclear ambitions, the mine had to be controlled. “Even though the US did not need the uranium at Shinkolobwe, it didn’t want the Soviet Union to get access to the mine,” explains Williams.

When the Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960, the mine was closed and the entrance filled with concrete. But Western powers wanted to ensure that any government presiding over Shinkolobwe remained friendly to their interests.

So important was stopping the Communist threat, says Zoellner, that these powers were willing to help depose the democratically elected government of Patrice Lumumba and install the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1965 for a decades-long reign of ruinous plutocracy.

Attempts by the Congolese people to negotiate better conditions for themselves were attacked as Communist-fuelled sedition. “The idealism, hope, and vision of the Congolese for a Congo free of occupation by an external power was devastated by the military and political interests of the Western powers,” says Williams.

A wound unhealed

Mobutu was eventually toppled in 1997, but the spectre of Shinkolobwe continues to haunt the DRC. Drawn by rich deposits of copper and cobalt, Congolese miners began digging informally at the site, working around the sealed mineshafts. By the end of the century, an estimated 15,000 miners and their families were present at Shinkolobwe, operating clandestine pits with no protection against the radioactive ore.

Accidents were commonplace: in 2004, eight miners were killed and more than a dozen injured when a passage collapsed. Fears that uranium was being smuggled from the site to terrorist groups or hostile states vexed Western nations, leading the Congolese army to raze the miners’ village that same year.

Stories abound of children born in the area with physical deformations, but few if any medical records are kept

Despite the mineral wealth present at Shinkolobwe, since Union Minière withdrew in the early 1960s there has never been an industrial mine that could safely and efficiently extract the ores and return the proceeds to the Congolese people. After the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, any interest in extracting the uranium for civilian use withered away. “Uranium, even in its natural condition, resists control,” says Zoellner. “Right now Shinkolobwe exists in a limbo, a symbol for the inherent geopolitical instability of uranium.”

The ongoing secrecy around Shinkolobwe (many official US, British and Belgian records on the subject are still classified) has stymied efforts to recognise the Congolese contribution to the Allied victory, as well as hampering investigation into the environmental and health impacts of the mine.

“The effects are medical, political, economic, so many things,” says Mombilo. “We’re not able to know the negative effects of radiation because of this secrecy.” Stories abound of children born in the area with physical deformations, but few if any medical records are kept. “I had a witness who died with his brain coming out of his head, because of the radiation,” says Mombilo. “In all these years, there is not even a special hospital, there is no scientific study or treatment.”

Many of those affected by Shinkolobwe are now campaigning for recognition and reparation, but knowing who should receive them – and who should pay – is compounded by the lack of information made available about the mine and what took place there.

“Shinkolobwe is a curse on the Congo,” says Mombilo.

But he adds that for over a century, the country’s rich resources have made possible one global revolution after another: rubber for tyres made automobiles possible, uranium fuelled nuclear reactors, coltan built the computers of the information age, and cobalt powers the batteries of mobile phones and electric vehicles.

“Our world is moved by the minerals of the Congo,” says Mombilo. “The positive thing I can say is that in all these advanced technologies, you’re talking about the Congo.”

The Congo’s impact on the world has been immeasurable. Recognising the name Shinkolobwe alongside Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be the first step to repaying that debt. {read}

[the-tmnt-ficfinder]

Ficfinder finds: The Neon Void

Chapter 2: Houdini

Rottmnt Fanfic Summary: Big Mama has a surprise guest at the Grand Nexus Hotel.

Houdini: Appraisal and Ratings

(Don't know what fanfic "Appraisal and Ratings" means? Check out my explanation on my Main Masterpost! Looking for a different fanfic to read? Head on over to my Fanfic List Masterpost!)

Disclaimer: This fanfic is completed, and is written by @sugarpasteltmnt, so go show them some love and kindness!

The fanfic ratings are not based on quality, favoritism, or how good I think it is, but rather, how intense a subject may be. Like a movie review, or the tags on Ao3, letting the readers know what to expect.

Plot: 💛💛💛💛🖤

"Plot is four out of five!! Immediately, the plot for this story shows right up. This is in no way a slow burn story, jumping right into the drama at first chance."

Suspense/Mystery: 💛💛💛💛🖤

"Suspense/Mystery is four out of five!! Chapter two is filled with mystery regarding who The Neon Void is, along with the suspense of a good fight!! This chapter will have you on the edge of your seat!!"

Angst/Hurt:💛 🖤🖤🖤🖤

"Angst/Hurt is one out of five!! Minimal angst, mostly action and excitement for this chapter!! ^^"

Fluff/Comfort: 💛🖤🖤🖤🖤

"Fluff/Comfort is one out of five!! Once again, very little fluff, just as there is very little angst. Simply a thrilling chapter indeed!!"

Emotions Conveyed: 💛💛🖤🖤🖤

"Emotions Conveyed is two out of five!! Chapter two of The Neon Void is definitely a thrilling chapter. This chapter is less about the feels and more about the excitement as it plunges right into a good plot!!"

Drama/Tension Level: 💛💛💛💛💛

"Drama/Tension Level is five out of five!! Absolutely, the drama is a five for this chapter!! Between the fight scenes, and the wild craziness of The Neon Void, this chapter has a ton of action!!"

Triggers: 💛🖤🖤🖤🖤

"Triggers are one out of five!! This chapter is minimally triggering. The only thing to look out for, is your classic TMNT violence ^^"

Legibility (Reading): 💛💛💛💛💛

"Legibility (Reading) is five out of five!! This chapter was incredibly fun to read!! The funky fonts used are really fun to look at, and add such a cool element to the story!!"

Legibility (Audio): 💛💛🖤🖤🖤

"Legibility (Audio) is two out of five! While the story itself is good for listening to, the funky fonts mess with reading quality, making it hard to understand. This chapter is much better read than listened to for sure!! Plus, there's fanart imbedded into the bottom of the chapter than you wouldn't want to miss."

Length: 💛💛💛🖤🖤

"Length is three out of five!! Chapter two of The Neon Void takes about 21-22 minutes to listen too!!"

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The Neon Void: Ratings and Chapter List

Personal thoughts on chapter below cut (Contains Spoilers)

The design for The Neon Void is such a fun and colorful one!!

There was a loud snapping sound. The yokai glitched. Shuttering in the air—looking like what old 3D movies looked like without the glasses—before coming back into focus two feet to the left from where he just was. Huh—?

I can't imagine how cool this actually looked!!

“SØⱤⱤɎ. ł ĐØ₦'₮ Ⱨ₳VɆ ₮ł₥Ɇ ₮Ø ₱Ⱡ₳Ɏ. ₲Ø₮ ₱Ⱡ₳₵ɆS ₮Ø ฿Ɇ. ⱧɆⱧɆ.”

I have no idea how the author got his effect, but its darn freaking cool looking!!

“…What in sweet Marie Curie’s name was that about?” Donnie was the first to break the silence. Raph was too shaken by the echo of the yokai’s laughter in his head to respond. Mikey dissipated his chains with a sizzle, exhaling a loud gasp. The three brothers sat still for a minute. Stunned.

Random fact because who doesn't like facts? Marie Curie was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She did a ton of research on a cure for cancer!! There you are, fact of the day!!

“I don’t know what he was looking for,” Big Mama sighed, “He was pestering me about some fibble-fabble ‘key’.” Big Mama clearly didn’t notice the boys freezing. Donnie felt the color drain from his face. A…key? A key to what? It could have meant a million things— there were countless possibilities to what it was probably for…the chances of it being that key were practically nonexistent…Right? Donnie’s feeble hope for reassurance from his brothers shattered when he glanced over and saw their faces. He could tell they were wondering the same thing he was.

Right when Big Mama said something about a 'key' my mind immediately jumped to the same conclusion that the brothers came up with. Its kinda fun to realize things like that.

“To teleport, you wouldn’t bend the space around you—you’d have to bend every molecule in your body at the same time. It would be like performing brain surgery, calculating the trajectory of a flying rocket, and folding YOURSELF into an impossible origami shape all at the same time!” He threw his hands up, exasperated, “That, AND there’s no risk of portal-jacking. A perfect, instantaneous, limitless control. ALL while having more power than several atomic bombs! It’s literally the holy grail of transportation! The highest score imaginable!”

The way this concept is explained is immaculate!! How portaling and teleportation differs, how one is easier while the other is dangerous. The whole concept of this is creative, unique, yet draws on knowledge we already have.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

15 Inventors Who Were Killed By Their Own Inventions

Marie Curie -  Marie Curie, popularly known as Madame Curie, invented the process to isolate radium after co-discovering the radioactive elements radium and polonium. She died of aplastic anemia as a result of prolonged exposure to ionizing radiation emanating from her research materials. The dangers of radiation were not well understood at the time.

William Nelson - a General Electric employee, invented a new way to motorize bicycles. He then fell off his prototype bike during a test run and died.

William Bullock - he invented the web rotary printing press. Several years after its invention, his foot was crushed during the installation of the new machine in Philadelphia. The crushed foot developed gangrene and Bullock died during the amputation.

Horace Lawson Hunley - he was a marine engineer and was the inventor of the first war submarine. During a routine test, Hunley, along with a 7-member crew, sunk to death in a previously damaged submarine H. L. Hunley (named after Hunley’s death) on October 15, 1963. 

Francis Edgar Stanley - Francis crashed into a woodpile while driving a Stanley Steamer. It was a steam engine-based car developed by Stanley Motor Carriage Company, founded by Francis E. Stanley and his twin Freelan O. Stanley. 

Thomas Andrews - he was an Irish businessman and shipbuilder. As the naval architect in charge of the plans for the ocean liner RMS Titanic, he was travelling on board that vessel during her maiden voyage when the ship hit an iceberg on 14 April 1912. He perished along with more than 1,500 others. His body was never recovered.

Thomas Midgley Jr. - he was an American engineer and chemist who contracted polio at age 51, leaving him severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to help others lift him from the bed. He was accidentally entangled in the ropes of the device and died of strangulation at the age of 55.

Alexander Bogdanov - he was a Russian physician and philosopher who was one of the first people to experiment with blood transfusion. He died when he used the blood of malaria and TB victim on himself.

Michael Dacre -  died after testing his flying taxi device designed to permit fast, affordable travel between regional cities.

Max Valier - invented liquid-fuelled rocket engines as a member of the 1920s German rocket society. On May 17, 1930, an alcohol-fuelled engine exploded on his test bench in Berlin that killed him instantly.

Mike Hughes - was killed when the parachute failed to deploy during a crash landing while piloting his homemade steam-powered rocket.

Harry K. Daghlian Jr. and Louis Slotin -  The two physicists were running experiments on plutonium for The Manhattan Project, and both died due to lethal doses of radiation a year apart (1945 and 1946, respectively).

Karel Soucek -  The professional stuntman developed a shock-absorbent barrel in which he would go over the Niagara Falls. He did so successfully, but when performing a similar stunt in the Astrodome, the barrel was released too early and Soucek plummeted 180 feet, hitting the rim of the water tank designed to cushion the blow.

Hammad al-Jawhari - he was a prominent scholar in early 11th century Iraq and he was also sort of an inventor, who was particularly obsessed with flight. He strapped on a pair of wooden wings with feathers stuck on them and tried to impress the local Imam. He jumped off from the roof of a mosque and consequently died.

Jean-Francoise Pilatre de Rozier -  Rozier was a French teacher who taught chemistry and physics. He was also a pioneer of aviation, having made the first manned free balloon flight in 1783. He died when his balloon crashed near Wimereux in the Pas-de-Calais during an attempt to fly across the English Channel. Pilâtre de Rozier was the first known fatalities in an air crash when his Roziere balloon crashed on June 15, 1785.

[deathmetalunicorn1]

hello! can i request a nikola tesla and the other scientist x male reader (plotonic with albert einstein,galileo & Alfred

as male! reader would see them as a father/grandpa figure's but with the othes scientist would be a poly relationship

[with Issac Newton, thomas Edison, Marie curie & Nikola Tesla]. if you don't want too or your not comfortable with it, it can be just a Nikola Tesla x male reader)

(this is kind of a "long" request but half of it is just information)

(alright to the the actual request)

Nikola and the other scientist with an m!s/o that acts dumb and oblivious but is basically william james sidis who is the smartest man to have ever lived and the man who had the IQ of 250-300 maybe more?and has a little tragic past?…like imagine the surprise of the others

(if you don't know who William James sidis.that's fine as i found facts about him that explains him and his discoveries and life in short with out writing a whole paragraph(which it still kind of is) so here you go(ps.if you want to know more information just type his name and you'll find it on Google♡︎:

facts:

William James Sidis

Said to be the smartest person who has ever lived, William James Sidis is the benchmark for child prodigies. He was reportedly able to read the newspaper aged just 18 months and entered Harvard University aged 11, graduating at 16

Why was William Sidis so smart?

Both his parents were highly educated, with his father being a prestigious psychiatrist and his mother graduating from Boston University in medicine. Williams's main areas of interest were mathematics, linguistics, and as an inventor. He was said to have known 25 to 40 languages

he actually went to harvard at 11 or 12 year's old… and knows around 25+ languages and dialects, including Esperanto, Latin, Greek, Russian, Yiddish, German, French, Hebrew, Welsh, Turkish, Armenian, and Sumerian, and he invented another

which he called Vendergood.In his work, The Book of Vendergood, Sidis essentially merged elements of Latin, Greek, French, German, and other Romance languages to create a new language.

his IQ has been estimated to be between 250 to 300+ or even more. And he's also known for

the book. The Animate and the Inanimate, that he published in 1925 (written around 1920), in which he speculated about the origin of life in the context of thermodynamics.

Sidis predicted the existence of regions of space where the second law of thermodynamics operates in the reverse temporal direction of our local area.

and By the time William Sidis was two he could read English and, at four he was typing original work in French. At the age of five he had devised a formula whereby he could name the day of the week for any given historical date. At eight he projected a new logarithms table based on the number twelve. He entered Harvard at the age of twelve and graduated cum laude before he was sixteen. Mathematics was not his only forte. At this age he could speak and read fluently French, German, Russian, Greek, Latin, Armenian and Turkish. During his first year at Harvard University the boy astounded students and scientists with his theories on "Fourth Dimensional Bodies."

The "man behind the gun" in this boy's amazing intellectual attainments is supposed to have been his father, a graduate in psychology at Harvard and a close friend of William James, after whom the boy was named. Dr. Boris Sidis believed in awakening in the child of two an interest in intellectual activity and love of knowledge. If you started early enough and worked intensively, Dr. Sidis claimed that by ten a child would acquire a knowledge equal to that of a college graduate. The boy’s father published articles urging other parents to follow his methods. He castigated the school authorities for their "cramming, routine and rote methods," which he said, "tend to nervous degeneracy and mental breakdown."

Sidis pointed to his son, William, as a successful example of his methods. He wrote: "At the age of twelve the boy had a fair understanding of comparative philology and mythology. He is well versed in logic, ancient history, American history and has a general insight into our politics and into the ground-work of our constitution. At the same time he is of extremely happy disposition, brimming over with humor and fun?"

Whether or not his childhood life was psychologically normal, William's life after Harvard was a series of unhappy incidents. He engaged in obscure mechanical jobs because, it was reported, "he did not want to think." At the age of twenty-four he estranged himself from his parents and to his last days the gap between parents and son remained unreconciled, though toward his sister he always felt a brotherly love which was expressed by a bond of friendship and mutual interests. Toward the press, William Sidis bore an everlastingly strong hatred.

From this story the newspapers and the general public drew some ill-formed conclusions about William Sidis and genius in general. Newspaper writers pointed out that his "genius had burned out," that he was "tired of thinking." By comparison it was stated that musical geniuses are less likely to burn out. The father’s system was held responsible for making the boy a prodigy. The parental pushing was blamed for the mental breakdown and antisocial attitude. From his desire to keep out of the limelight and taking obscure jobs that would pay for his subsistence, William Sidis, the boy prodigy, was made out to be at the time of his death a lonely, eccentric, prodigious failure" whose intellect had deteriorated.

so when m! reader got to Valhalla that's why he acted so oblivious and dumb as he was actually so tired of thinking back when he was alive but now since he was in Valhalla he can finally do whatever he wanted when he wanted and finally rest but it did take him a year or two to get back to his genius self Back.

(to the surprise of the others who first met him as a "obvious man and Dumb man" so there very VERY surprised seeing his theories and achievements he had at such a young age that he kept secret from them while he was finally relaxing only wanting a time where he didn't have to think all the time)

(and how did they find out? they accidentally walked in on

m!reader casually solving a problem they we're having trouble with so they just look at him in shock as he was known to be oblivious and being not so smart to say…they also did get confused when m!reader speaks in Vendergood)

(and i thought it would be funny to see nikola's and the other scientists finding out that nikola's/there

M!s/o who is known to be oblivious and dumb is actually more smarter than them cause why not)

-Valhalla was a place of peace for you- a place where you could just relax, enjoy yourself, there was no pressure to do more- to be the best- no people breathing down your neck, watching your every move, wanting to know how you were so smart.

-You made friends, good friends with other geniuses throughout history, Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Galileo, Isaac Newton, and Thomas Edison- and you enjoyed watching them work, but not for any goal they had specifically in mind- no they did it for fun.

-You kept quiet on how smart you really were- not wanting to relive what you had to live through on earth, being pressured by your parents, your teachers, everyone around you- to be a genius.

-You remember the pain well, when you finally broke, unable to handle their pressure- their expectations, and you turned away from science and knowledge, just wanting to be a normal guy!

-That’s why you hide your intelligence in Valhalla, pretending that you weren’t as smart as the others around you- you were afraid of their expectations of you if they were to find out, afraid of their questions because in actuality you were smarter than all of them.

-You adored your friends, growing close with all of them, they were like brothers or father figures to you, real father figures who just sat and talked with you over coffee and cake, asking about your day, the weather, and other random topics.

-They never made you feel inferior however, never looking down on you that you were not as smart as them, they made you feel welcomed, asking for your opinion, or rambling on about their newest discovery, as you would sit there and listen to them without a care in the world.

-You loved watching them work, seeing their joy- their passion, in the pursuit of knowledge, wanting to know more and more. It reminded you of when you were young on Earth, you were so full of hope and joy, only to be snuffed out by pressure.

-You walked in with a large box from the bakery you all enjoyed, “Food!” and heads turned from all over the lab, seeing you there, heading over to the large, mostly empty table that was half taken up by Marie’s own research.

-You looked over at the problem they had been researching for days now, each of them taking turns being in charge, each of them researching the factors and theories that went into the equation, but with nothing adding up.

-The equation looked simple, but you could see errors all over, which was the reason why they weren’t getting any results.

-You ushered all of them away from their work, pushing on Nikola’s back, “Go take a shower and get something to drink- I got everyone’s favorites!”

-Not wanting to leave their work, they did as you told, all of them leaving the lab to clean up, as you told them it might help to take a break then come back with fresh eyes and with baked goods in their belly.

-Once they were gone, you got to work, helping clean up their dirty dishes around the lab, straightening things up like their paperwork, but for the most part leaving everything alone.

-You then looked at the massive blackboard you saw Thomas and Nikola working on and you bit your lip lightly, looking at the mistakes, before looking at the closed door.

-They had been all working so hard and you could see their frustration mounting, you felt bad as you worried about them, before you sighed softly, “If I can be quick!”

-You grabbed the chalk and the ladder Thomas was on before you ascended, going to the top of the board, where the first mistake was, and you corrected it, before you noticed that due to that mistake, everything was now messed up.

-You looked back at the door, before you quickly started erasing, filling out the correct formula, turning it into a race to be done before your friends got back.

-You reached the bottom, going into zone before you pulled back, setting the chalk down, “Finished!” a mug hitting the floor had you leaping out of your skin, turning to see Thomas pointing up at the board, seeing the corrected formula, ending with the solution, as he had been the one to drop his mug.

-You blanched, terrified and they could see the terror before you were quickly scooped up by Isaac, “Y/N this is amazing!!” you cried out, being spun around before you were sat down, your eyes twirling around in your head.

-You were nervous as the others quickly, Nikola wrapping an arm around you, pulling you close, all of them elated that you solved the problem so easily!

-You twiddled your fingers bashfully, “You’re not mad?” Galileo turned, taking your hand before leading you to the box of treats you had gotten, “Mad? Why would we be mad? This is amazing! We knew you were smart but this is…” he trailed off, just in awe.

-Marie giggled softly, pinching your cheek as you looked shocked, “Didn’t think we didn’t know about you, right Y/N? We’ve known since we met you- but we saw how nervous you looked- for good reasons- so we never pushed you.”

-You felt foolish, your cheeks growing red which made them all poke fun at you, teasing you harmlessly before Nikola looked up at the board, “How did you figure out where we went wrong?”

-You pointed at the point of the chalkboard where you started writing, “That math equation there was calculated wrong, so it gave you the wrong answer, and with the wrong answer going all the way down, you would have never gotten the correct solutions.”

-They all gaped up at you, blinking owlishly before it was your turn to playfully tease them, “And that’s why I tell you all to take breaks!” laughter quickly filled the room, research done for the moment, as you sat with your friends, enjoying your snacks in this rare quiet moment, your fear and anxiety now gone.

[eepuniverse]

In 1903, Marie Curie founded a clandestine society where brilliant women could pursue the furthest reaches of their intellect. The Curie Society still covertly exists today in secret chapters at dozens of universities worldwide!

When Simone, Maya, and Taj arrive at Edmonds University, they think they’re simply starting their coursework, but after a strange night of puzzles and coded communications, they are introduced to The Curie Society. Almost immediately, they are deployed on their first urgent mission! A mysterious criminal network has stolen research data from a top-secret Curie de-extinction lab, and if no one intervenes, it will soon be sold to some of the world’s worst elements.

These new recruits will have to use all their specialized scientific skills to protect the Curie Society and save the world – or their first mission may be their last!

Get your copy of The Curie Society:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Bookshop.org

Books-a-Million

Target

Walmart

Apple Books

Google Play 

Kobo

Bring The Curie Society to your classroom with our interactive educator guide.

New recruits can find exclusive merch on our website to feature their fandom.

[asmolfolk]

Can you do Marie Curie (Shuumatsu no Valkyrie) x female!reader headcanons.

I'm not Polish, so I'm sorry if any of the informations are wrong [Nicknames and etc]

Marie Curie had an husband in her life time, but, let's say that she had you too. (I wrote it as ONLY Marie x Reader.) TW: There are some mentions of homophobia. [Because it would be a lesbian couple in 1800.]

What is like having her as your girlfriend?

Sweet like cake.

She would be a very romantic yet busy partner. She will always have a certain amount of hours or days that she would try to spend just studying - with Pierre or no. She is a romantic fellow, always espect her to do some stuff that she read somewhere that womans love... Being such as, always holding the door for you, kissing your hand, praising you until your insecurities fly away or just cuddling with you. But don't espect to do PDA, she doesn't like it and she doesn't want people to spy on her private life. She never let's the work be too much or spend little to no time with you. Different from Nikolas, she isn't in a whole other level of workaholic, she would let you stay with her studyng and would even teach you some stuff - Yes, she would probably make you work.

Does she get jealous easily?

Sometimes she overthinks, but seeing you sleep so cutely... She knows that there's where she meant to be.

She is the embodiment of INTP, she is analytical and doesn't let her emotions get through her, prefering to be logical. In that moment, she knows that she is... Fucked. In a logical thinking, being in a romantic relationship with a woman in 1800... It was just too much, she was putting her own life in danger just by being around you... After midnight, when she can't sleep... Is always when she overthinks, when she start to want to backdown. You were just like Pierre to her, a wonderful partner... Someone she trust - but, can she just ignore that you both could get killed? She should just break up... It would safe your life! ...She always changes her mind when she hears you whispering her name, smiling while sleeps or just feel you hugging her. "It's... Worth. Even if we die... It's worth."

What does she call you?

She always calls you by Polish nicknames or call you by elements.

Kotku [Kitten] if you are just like her, curious, inteligent and always trying to learn new things. Misiu [Bear] if you are lazy and always hungry. Skarbie [Treasure] doesn't matter how you act, she will always call you that. Or she would just say like: "Come here, copper and tellurium [Cu Te], we need to keep moving" and do other strange and nerd flirty quotes.

What is her love language?

Words of affirmation and acts of service.

Well, let's just say that... She isn't someone that likes PDA, so, when you two are in public - she just shows her love by praising or doing things for you. A lot of times, you would get home and see her holding exactly what you were wanting for days. She would always take care of you, buying you anything you like, doing things so that you can be a bit lazy sometimes [Doing laundry or anything else.] She would give you a lot of praises, even if she is criticting something that you made.

How she would be with her S/O love languages?

She always tries to make things work out for both of you.

For her, what matters are boundaries. Your love language is physical touch? She can let you hold her arm in public, but don't expect anything else... But, in private, you can do whatever you want.

Your love language is quality time? Well, let's settle down and pick random days just so we can have full days of just quality time.

Words of affirmation, acts of service or gifts? Well... Give her everything, she always love a ego boost.

For her, she just need to know your love language so that she can put her limits on show [OFC, if you disagree, she is ready to discuss those things.]

Bônus - Missing you.

She always misses you.

It doesn't matter the day, if it's raining... If she is not with you, she misses you. She was accostumed by your presence, your warm... She feels so cold while doing her things. She can't even properly say something to you when she sees you again... Her words are lost as she completely embrace you on her arms.

"I missed you... So much. My love, my Skarbie... I want you to know that... Even if we can't get married yet. If we could, If I was a man... I would have asked your hand in marriage a long time ago... My beautiful... I hope we can get married on your next life - if exist one."

[periodictabletournament]

For every round that Curium, Radium, or Polonium survives, I’ll send in another fact about Marie Curie, the woman who discovered Radium and Polonium and who Curium is named after. Deal? Deal.

Maria Sklodowska was a Polish woman born in November 1867. She eventually married Pierre Curie, and they had two daughters together. Pierre eventually died after getting his head crushed like a melon under a carriage, and Marie died in 1934 of leukemia due to, guess what, radioactive exposure. More to come 👍

a compelling reason to keep those elements in play, anon

[scienceysideblog]

Finally finished the biography of Marie curie written by her daughter eve. I finished it a while ago but didn't realise I'd left this post in my drafts. I knew a little bit about Marie curie before reading it but I don't think I quite appreciated the struggles she experienced in her life, how incredibly hard she worked and how much she achieved.

Ironically, I get the impression she wouldn't have liked the fact I see her as such an inspiration. She said "in science we must be interested in things not persons" and she never really understood the way people reacted to her once she was famous.

Despite this, I cannot help but be inspired by her and hope that I have some things in common with her which will help me succeed as a scientist even if not in the same way she did. Although, I think the book has also helped me come to the conclusion that whether other people, even if they are my inspirations, think I will be a successful scientist isn't really what matters, the science I love is what matters.

I think she was the sort of person who if she saw a problem she could help with, helped without hesitation, someone who was determined, who worked incredibly hard, who loved her family and her country and her subject. She could've been a millionaire, if she and pierre curie had patented the extraction process of radium, but she rejected it because of her principles, because radium was an element and she felt it belonged to everyone. She said "humanity certainly needs practical men... But humanity also needs dreamers" and I think she was a dreamer and I think despite everything, in the end she was hopeful for the future of her laboratory and for the future of science.

My physics teacher (who also inspires me) told our class that the curies and the Einsteins are the people that don't give up. And I understand that even more now from reading this book. Marie waited for so long to go to university because she was working so that her sister could go and she almost gave up hope, but she didn't. And even during that time she taught disadvantaged children because she saw an opportunity to make a difference. Despite winning the Nobel prize she and pierre could not afford a laboratory and they struggled for many years doing their research in cramped unsuitable rooms. Eventually, some time after pierre's death Marie built her laboratory and multiple radium institutes.

I was attempting to compile a list of key quotes however, aside from this one, I think the most important are the ones I have mentioned earlier in this post as I still think about them regularly.

"if I see anything vital around me, it is precisely that spirit of adventure, which seems indestructible and is akin to curiosity"

I strongly recommend madame curie the book to anyone interested in her or in radioactivity because it is brilliant.