Marie Curie's Reading List
The 5 books that shaped Marie Curie — physicist & nobel laureate.
The only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, she pioneered research on radioactivity at enormous personal cost.
Influential Books
A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
James Clerk Maxwell(1873)
Maxwell's foundational physics text was essential reading for Curie's understanding of electromagnetic phenomena.
On the Origin of Species
Charles Darwin(1859)
Curie admired Darwin's rigorous empiricism — the model of patient, systematic scientific investigation.
Physics
Aristotle
As a student in Paris, Curie studied classical physics from Aristotle forward to understand the field she would revolutionize.
Positivist Philosophy
Auguste Comte(1830)
Polish intellectuals of Curie's generation were steeped in Comte's positivism — the belief that science could improve society.
Pan Tadeusz
Adam Mickiewicz(1834)
Poland's national epic — Curie carried her love of Polish literature and identity throughout her life in France.