Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout in Around the World in 80 Books

Mar 19, 2016 Katie rated it really liked it

Shelves: female-author, graphic-novels, science

In Radioactive, Lauren Redniss depicts the lives and work of Marie and Pierre Curie through a combination of text and illustrations. Interspersed within this narrative are related stories about the lasting effects their work, mostly that which concerned radioactivity. These include accounts of major events like the Hiroshima bombing, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl. It also includes other stories about those who go to radon mines for the supposed health benefits, factory workers in the 1920s wh In Radioactive, Lauren Redniss depicts the lives and work of Marie and Pierre Curie through a combination of text and illustrations. Interspersed within this narrative are related stories about the lasting effects their work, mostly that which concerned radioactivity. These include accounts of major events like the Hiroshima bombing, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl. It also includes other stories about those who go to radon mines for the supposed health benefits, factory workers in the 1920s who became ill from putting paint brushes dipped in radium in their mouths to achieve the fine strokes needed for painting glowing watches, and cancer survivors treated with radiation.

I really liked the illustrations in this book. Quite a few illustrations in this book are created by something called cyanotype printing that creates really compelling images in blue and white. (If you aren’t familiar with it, do a Google image search.) In her afterward, Redniss talks about the reasons she used this technique. One, it makes it appear as though the image is glowing internally, capturing radium’s luminosity. Second, the process uses the principles of photographic imaging, which was central to radioactivity, and finally, the chemicals produced by cyanotype printing can also be used to treat the effects of exposure to certain types of radiation. I found these images very striking before reading her reasons for using them, and hearing her reasons made them even more compelling. The cyanotype prints were beautiful, yet at the same time eerie and rather haunting. It highlights the idea that amidst all the excitement surrounding these incredible discoveries, there is this undertone of something just plain sad, knowing how invisibly poisonous the work environment was and all the bad that would come from the principles they were working to uncover.

While reading this book, I wavered between utter amazement of people’s ability to understand and manipulate our complex world and a complete fear of the exact same thing. So much good and bad can come from same scientific principles. The Curies, like so many other scientists of the era, feared the evil that would come from their work. What a complicated dilemma, to be so intelligent and passionate about your work, committed to knowledge sharing in the scientific community, but at the same time knowing what this knowledge can be used for.

On a happy note, there are other practical applications for the work of the Curies. The principles of the Curie point, which is a relationship between heat and magnetism, are used in plate tectonics, measuring caffeine in beverages, and treating hypothermia. The principle of piezoelectricity is used in propelling droplets in inkjet printers, controlling the beeps of smoke detectors, and reducing vibrations in tennis rackets. I don’t really understand these concepts, but it is nice to think about the scientists sitting around trying to figure out how to measure the caffeine content of coffee or how to make a smoke detector beep and not just those scientists making bombs.

I loved one of the photographs in the book that showed Marie Curie lecturing to a classroom entirely filled with men. Way to go, Marie!
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Jun 18, 2012 Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance rated it really liked it

Shelves: creativity, quest, history, nonfiction, strong-girls-strong-women, france, problems-ideas

When I was in second grade, I was bored and my teacher did what all good teachers do when they have students who are bored in class: she assigned me a research project.

My research project was on Marie and Pierre Curie.

Here I was, seven years old, reading about radiation and atomic particles and nuclear energy. I was fascinated, even if I didn’t quite get everything I read.

The minute I saw this book, I knew it was a book that I had to read. If nothing else, I wanted to see if I understood radiati ...more

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Aug 09, 2021 superawesomekt rated it really liked it

Shelves: comics-and-graphic-novels, biography

I can see why this is well-acclaimed. If you are already steeped in the history of Marie Curie and her legacy, then this will not have much you do not know (except for perhaps the personal, more biographical details of her life), but if, like me, you only have a cursory knowledge of these topics, then this fantastically illustrated and meandering biography of the Curies, their work, their love, their legacy will have much to offer. I enjoyed it.

Note: This is very text heavy. There are quite a fe ...more

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Jan 31, 2020 Tanya rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2020

While one could read this book much faster than I did, it would be missing so many of the fantastic details, not only of Madame Curie, but of her family and the political environment and scientific community of that recent history. I also didn’t love the looks of the artwork, but I still found each one mesmerizing and worthy of in depth examination. Not everyone will appreciate this book, but I am so grateful it crossed my path.

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