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cover art for Marie Curie (Marie & Polonium)

Muses

Marie Curie (Marie & Polonium)

Season 1, Ep. 10

In this episode Emma Nagouse (You're Dead To Me) and Dan Smith (Bastille) are talking about scientific genius and double Nobel Prize-winner Marie Curie, who inspired Dan's somewhat accurate song Marie & Polonium, which you can hear on Bastille Presents... "&": https://bastille.lnk.to/ampersandstore.


Rejected by her country, she named her (first) world-changing discovery after it; rejected by the academic establishment, she won two Nobel Prizes. But just how brilliant WAS she?


(This episode contains a potentially upsetting description of Pierre Curie's death.)


You can find out more about all the people we're talking about in this series at ampersand.bastillebastille.com.


Say hello at muses@leadmojo.co.uk.


Muses: An Ampersand Podcast is presented by Dan Smith and Emma Nagouse. The researcher was Genevieve Johnson-Smith, and it was produced by Emma Nagouse and Ed Morrish for Lead Mojo productions.


Cover photography by Bo Morgan, taken at the Walker Art Gallery, in Liverpool

Cover design by Chris Barker

Episode artwork by Harriet Bruce

Recorded at Plosive Studios

Mixed by Miles Wheway


Thanks to Dr. Melissa Gustin for arranging the location for the cover art, and to Moira Mack and Charlie Barnes for their help with the jingle


Sources:

  • “Perils of Radium Emphasised Today by Discoverer.” The Daily Notes. 28th May 1928
  • Curie, Eve. Madame Curie. New York: Doubleday, 1938
  • Giroud, Francoise. Marie Curie. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986
  • Golden, Ross. “MARIE CURIE.” Bulletin of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America 3, no. 2 (1945)
  • Goldsmith, Barbara. Obsessive Genius. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005
  • Harrow, Benjamin. “Madame Curie.” Science, 87, no. 2247 (1938)
  • Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory. “Women in the History of Science.” Osiris 10 (1995)
  • Pflaum, Rosalynd. Grand Obsession. New York: Doubleday, 1989.

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