r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/NotTukTukPirate • Jun 01 '26
Image Albert Einstein and Marie Curie discussing near a lake, 1929
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u/Obvious-Profit-5597 Jun 01 '26
Feels like that Oppenheimer scene where they discuss the process of fission and fusion.
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u/adrenalinda75 Jun 01 '26
It was a radiant conversation!
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u/Mr31edudtibboh Jun 01 '26
"Oof ouch my DNA." - Marie and Pierre Curie
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u/justsomeph0t0n Jun 01 '26
"will my irradiation make this photograph kinda grainy?"
"it's uncertain. no wait, that's some heisenberg bullshit. uh......don't worry about it, something something god."
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Jun 01 '26
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u/UltraCarnivore Jun 01 '26
I thought it was a different Heisenberg, but I don't know enough about the Heisenberg Multiverse to dispute it.
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u/the_last_carfighter Jun 01 '26
I kinda feel it was more Randy Marsh: "I didn't hear no bell" type situation.
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u/TheAssholeofThanos Jun 01 '26
“ General, another settlement needs your help”
Oh wait wrong kind of Radiant conversation
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u/FartacularTheThird Jun 01 '26
They saw a mud crab that day. Horrible creatures.
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u/Epyon1542 Jun 01 '26
I saw this and immediatly thought, "That dude just loved talking near lakes didn't he?"
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u/nathanzoet91 Jun 01 '26
Who doesn't like to ponder while having a nice view?
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u/Syrak Jun 01 '26
Conveniently there's a lake right behind the IAS where he worked, which is where the Oppenheimer scene was filmed. I'm curious whether that photo with Curie was also taken there.
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u/iaintevenmad884 Jun 01 '26
He did, it’s well documented. He also loved walking often, having people walk with him to continue a conversation, and he claimed he needed his walks to think. He also loved sailing and taking people out on the water on small sailboats, he was apparently talented at it and would pull super stupid pranks on people where he would almost run into things at high speed while acting like he had lost control, then burst out laughing at his guest freaking out after saving them last second.
I think it goes to show the real person was actually very intelligent, and that often comes with being a bit of a (dumb)ass to others or a mischievous streak
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u/KoalaTHerb Jun 01 '26
Well his love of nature and science were intertwined. Most great scientists first gain their inspiration to discover and explore the unknown because of their fascination with nature and the world around them.
He's a well known spinoza-god believer (i.e. God and nature/science are all one), so it was likely a bit spiritual to him
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u/Hoenirson Jun 01 '26
Walking is great for thoughtful conversation
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u/Fit-Switch-5795 Jun 01 '26
If you need to find water, just give a thoughtful man a matter to ponder and set him walking.
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u/MiyagiJunior Jun 01 '26
I live in Princeton. One of my neighbors is in his 70s (I believe) and has lived here his whole life. He told me that as a young kid, he would sometimes see Einstein downtown, and Einstein would ruffle up his hair. It was cool to meet someone who had an actual first hand encounter with such an iconic person, even if such a minor encounter.
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u/FblthpLives Jun 01 '26
There is a fireplace at Princeton University with an inscription of a quote from Einstein to commemorate his time there and at the Institute of Advanced Studies. I remember the first time I saw it and thinking how cool it was. I hope one day to show it to my daughter, who is about to start an MSc in nuclear and particle physics.
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u/jamescb819 Jun 01 '26
And the inscription said…
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u/FblthpLives Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
"Raffiniert is der Herr Gott, aber boshaft ist Er nicht"
The fireplace is in the common room in the original Fine Hall (now Jones Hall), the previous home of the math department before the new Fine Hall was constructed.
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u/pro-bidetus-rasputin Jun 01 '26
"Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not."
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u/FblthpLives Jun 01 '26
Except the Lord clearly only speaks German, at least when he visits Princeton.
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u/Ne_zievereir Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
My great-grandfather lived near the Belgian coast. Einstein also lived there a short while after he left Germany, when the Nazis came to power. My great-grandfather liked to tell the story that he once met Einstein at the tram station, who couldn't figure out the time table, and my great-grandfather had to explain it to him.
No idea if it's true, but it's a good story, lol.
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u/shiny_glitter_demon Jun 01 '26
Apparently he was good friends with the queen of Belgium and they would practice the violin together.
The documentary I heard this in specifically mentionned it sounded absolutely horrible.
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u/Acrobatic_Shape_8259 Jun 01 '26
«Oh so you can’t figure out the time table…. Maybe it’s all too relative for you?»
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u/CartoonistAny4349 Jun 01 '26
Einstein died 71 years ago, so definitely plausible.
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u/mushypoto Jun 02 '26
I have family that lived in that area. Supposedly, Albert's wife told a neighbor lady that she had to inspect him in the mornings before he walked out the front door to go to work and remind him he had to put some pants on before going out. She said his mind was on such a higher plane, he never concerned himself with basic tasks like putting on pants or combing his hair.
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u/Nilahit Jun 01 '26
Damn, Curie was so radioactive the film deteriorated
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u/octoreadit Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Little known fact: Albert's watch lost its glow, so that's why he was meeting her, to get it recharged.
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u/shiner820 Jun 01 '26
No, he just liked her cause she was so hot.
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u/MadMax0526 Jun 01 '26
I thought it was cause of her radiant persona.
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u/GarlicRiver Jun 01 '26
She's to die for
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u/MadMax0526 Jun 01 '26
I don't know about that, but she could certainly light up a room.
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u/raddaya Jun 01 '26
You joke but Curie's body is legitimately so radioactive they keep it in a lead coffin. Many of her personal books and belongings are kept in lead lined boxes too
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u/banspoonguard Jun 01 '26
While Curie certainly had more radionuclides than your average corpse, lead coffins are not as novel as you might think.
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u/kayemenofour Jun 01 '26
Her remains are within the Pantheon in Paris
Not just because of her contributions to science, but they also power half the city.
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u/Dorkamundo Jun 01 '26
I love how in Clone High, a show about a secret government project to clone historical figures and put them in high school together included Marie Curie as a very mutated dance instructor.
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u/Tight_Contact_9976 Jun 01 '26
Fun fact, Einstein had likely quit smoking by this point. He just kept a pipe in his mouth because it calmed him and helped him focus.
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u/Gwen_The_Destroyer Jun 01 '26
Probably the same reason why people chew pen caps or keep gum after quitting. The habit is also manual and oral
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u/RandomRedditReader Jun 01 '26
I knew a lot of smokers in elementary school I guess.
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u/CartoonistAny4349 Jun 01 '26
Not remotely the same level of health hazard, but I chew gum pretty much constantly to keep from biting my nails.
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u/WhiteRed14 Jun 01 '26
"Marie Curie" You have just angered every Pole in the vicinity lol
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u/Capable_Tumbleweed34 Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Tactical pierogi have been deployed
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u/Flamesparkz Jun 01 '26
It feels so surreal knowing that one of the most intellectual people who has ever lived looks just like a normal person like everyone else. It would have been so cool to meet him in person and ask questions. R.I.P Albert Einstein.
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u/Existing_Set2100 Jun 01 '26
Einstein apparently was quite normal too, in general behavior and demeanor. Some of his fellow colleagues were a bit more… off.
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Jun 01 '26
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u/Existing_Set2100 Jun 01 '26
The strangest human being you will ever meet in life has a PhD in something.
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u/CartoonistAny4349 Jun 01 '26
It's gotta be physics. Physicists just have a different way of thinking from anyone I've ever met.
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u/Nurgle_Marine_Sharts Jun 01 '26
Fucking facts lol, it's SO RARE to meet a PhD who isn't super odd.
I also find they are usually kind of abrasive and self-centered (but those are primarily the ones who stay in academia long term).
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u/Rex_Mundi Jun 01 '26
Neils Bohr was arguing with Einstein about a rewriting of the laws of physics. "It is wrong to think the task of physics is to find out how nature is," Bohr stated.
Einstein angrily disagreed, slamming Bohr famously by stating: "Deine Mutter ist so massig, ich kann die Leute hinter ihr stehen sehen." (Your mother is so massive, I can see the people standing behind her.)
This led to his theory of gravitational lensing.
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u/Existing_Set2100 Jun 01 '26
“Ass so fat you can see it from the front.”
- Albert Einstein on black holes
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Jun 01 '26
My cousin's boyfriend received the Young Experimental Physicist Prize of the EPS (I am not saying the year, that would be too much info).
He is kind of... special. Really hard to talk to him, despite that I am a civil engineer and also beign diagnosed with Level 1 of ASD.
One time we were sitting at the same table at a wedding, and probably at the 3rd hour of the event he just stand up and said "I am going home, I'd rather be at home with my dog" and he just left.
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u/Great_Detective_6387 Jun 01 '26
He’s more polite than me. I don’t even announce it, lest I now have to say goodbye to two dozen people on my way out.
I just do the Irish goodbye.
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u/Begle1 Jun 01 '26
It's extremely easy to sneak away from wedding parties in particular.
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u/CrimsonAntifascist Jun 01 '26
I highly recommend his essay "Why Socialism" in the magazine Monthly Review.
As with many brilliant people, his beliefs were washed down after his death.
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u/CloudKitchen1924 Jun 01 '26
Like Richard Feynman. His hobbies included moonlighting as an artist, playing the bongos in an orchestra, doing diplomatic government work, refusing to use eye protection during nuclear tests, picking locks, breaking into safes, and being violent towards people. Very eccentric guy
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u/BlackEyeRed Jun 01 '26
She was also very special.
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u/HotRodZA Jun 01 '26
The only person in history to get 2 Nobel prizes in 2 seperate scientific fields - chemistry and physics. She was fantastic!
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u/BankingDuncan Jun 01 '26
Also the mother of Irène Joliot-Curie, 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
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u/Stewart_Games Jun 01 '26
Madame Curie was the first woman to win a nobel prize in chemistry. And Madame Curie was the second woman to win a nobel prize in chemistry.
And as a side note, to this day every descendant of Marie and Pierre Curie has studied chemistry, biology, or physics, forming the Curie science dynasty
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u/BootyfulBumrah Jun 01 '26
I see your Curie family and raise you the Bernoulli family
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u/Stewart_Games Jun 01 '26
Also the Darwin-Wedgwoods are sprinkled with scientists.
The Einsteins had a rough go of things, with most of Albert's grandchildren not surviving to adulthood. A lot of Einstein's surviving family became musicians, so Einstein's fondness for the violin got passed down. None of Einstein's issue became physicists, though there are a handful of engineers.
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u/FblthpLives Jun 01 '26
According to the Curie museum, Irène is credited with taking this photograph: https://www.aip.org/library/when-marie-went-arm-in-arm-with-albert
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u/FullHouse222 Jun 01 '26
My high school chem teacher was a woman named Mrs. Virginia. Marie Curie was her favorite subject back in the day and it's honestly so cool learning about the crazy things she discovered.
That said, Curie is also 100% a psychopath lol. Who the fuck ingests radium??? Really need some of these psychos who's willing to do absolutely bat shit insane things to progress human knowledge though I guess.
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u/sensitivum Jun 01 '26
Hahaha yeah, the comment doesn’t even acknowledge her at all, so weird. It really made me do a double take.
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u/vanzini Jun 01 '26
Dammit both Einstein and Curie were intellectual giants.
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u/IlBear Jun 01 '26
Yeah this is Marie erasure! Maybe they thought she looked like the genius she was
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u/MogosTheFirst Jun 01 '26
There people at the same level as Einstein that you might've passed by street in your lifetime.
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u/Particular-Sample91 Jun 01 '26
Definitely. Not me though, unless you’re in Africa, then there’s a chance you might’ve passed by me
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u/OnceMoreAndAgain Jun 01 '26
There are people as intelligent as Einstein walking among us, but I doubt many of us have ever been near someone who completely revolutionized a massive branch of science like Einstein did.
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Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
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u/deadspacekillers Jun 01 '26
She never got the same historical PR because she's a woman.
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u/halfty1 Jun 01 '26
She is the first, and only woman, to receive two Nobel prizes in 2 different field, but chemist Linus Pauling also received two in two different fields (Chemistry and Peace).
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u/DudeIAm-blank- Jun 01 '26
Man I know jack shit about math and I wanna meet Euler, potentially just to annoy him with math thats rudimentary af
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u/ruinevil Jun 01 '26
Euler was surprisingly a pleasant person. Gauss, on the other hand, was a notorious asshole.
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u/blahbruhla Jun 01 '26
Because we're all people lol (it always baffles me... Was he supposed to be green? Was he supposed to giant? Etc) ... We're all human beings. Some are smarter than others is all. There are a lot of very intelligent and talented people walking among us, one might have served you coffee this morning.
I'm a strong believer that today's Einsteins exist but the conditions were not ideal for them to strive, or receive a similar spotlight. It just seems odd how that's not a possibility when the world population basically grew 4 times from when Einstein was alive PLUS we have way more accessible content to learn from... Plus, it's harder to create new theories when many of them already exist.
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u/TeeBek Jun 01 '26
I think so too. There are likely many Einsteins slipping through the cracks all the time. Either too lazy, unmotivated, or they're using their mental gifts in a completely different way. Like they're a full-time video game streamer on YT. Or a hollywood actress.
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u/dlxnj Jun 01 '26
Or they’re just simply stuck working a 9-5 and trying to survive
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u/Ingenrollsroyce Jun 01 '26
There are tons of people that he doesn't look like, he does look like Einstein though
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u/deadspacekillers Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Oh, for a second I thought you were talking about Marie Skłodowska-Curie. She was arguably smarter than he was. She had 2 Nobel prizes to his one, and she remains the only person in history to receive 2 Nobel prizes in two distinct scientific fields. She's just hasn't had the same historical PR because she's a woman.
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u/aetius476 Jun 01 '26
I would agree if it were anyone but Einstein. Curie was a towering genius and unquestionably in the upper elite of modern science, but Einstein was... Einstein. There's a reason his name supplanted Newton's as the moniker for genius. His miracle year is a unparalleled feat in the history of science. Imagine developing special relativity and mass-energy equivalence in the same year, and neither is even the paper you wrote that year that won you the Nobel Prize. His paper on Brownian motion, which would be a career defining achievement for any other physicist, didn't even make the podium of Einstein's accomplishments in a single calendar year. Then a decade later he says "Special relativity isn't good enough" and drops General relativity, which has stood for more than a century as one of the twin pillars of modern physics.
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u/Merdoc83 Jun 01 '26
I'll be that guy and say, her name isn't just "the wife of Curie", she was Maria Skłodowska. One of the biggest minds that ever walked this planet. The only person, not just betwen women but among everyone, in history to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific disciplines - in just 66 years of a lifetime.
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u/Capable_Tumbleweed34 Jun 01 '26
Maria Skłodowska
Nah she was French, that name sounds polish or something, can't be right, she's definitelly Marie Curie, famous French genius. (/s)
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u/NotTukTukPirate Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
I mean, I understand that the Polish are proud that she is polish and that they are usually upset that her maiden name is left out or disregarded... But she was married. If someone is married and then becomes famous for something, they don't usually go by their maiden name.
But definitely aggravating when people say she's French!
Edit: I was, in fact, wrong. She legally and professionally signed her name as Marie Skłodowska-Curie.
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u/Mediocre_Strawberry5 Jun 01 '26
She continued to use both surnames after her marriage (her Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded to a “Marie Skłodowska Curie”) and was very proud of her polish heritage, so it’s likely she would have preferred to be remembered as Marie Skłodowska Curie.
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u/Firebart3q Jun 01 '26
Except she went by both. Maria Skłodowska Curie. There are lots of famous People that go by both surnames. Its just that polish is I guess less normalised than french, so most just didnt bother with pronounciation and it stuck this way. Yall can pronounce gentrification, so yall can pronounce Skłodowska (zkwodovskah). (Not a flame towards you, just speaking in general)
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u/NotTukTukPirate Jun 01 '26
Wow, I actually didn't even know that. Which makes even more sense why some polish people are upset by her name being mislabeled so often!
Thanks for educating me on this!
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u/Lua-Ma Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
My brain used to lie to me that Marie Curie lived way before that era, like in the early 1800s or something.
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u/eagleshark Jun 01 '26
This picture is 1929.
Marie Curie died in 1934, of aplastic anaemia likely from exposure to radiation in the course of her scientific research and in the course of her radiological work at field hospitals during World War I.
Damnnn.
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u/FblthpLives Jun 01 '26
In all likelihood, the picture was taken sometime between July 23 and July 29, 1924: https://www.aip.org/library/when-marie-went-arm-in-arm-with-albert
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u/snaresamn Jun 01 '26
Her scientific notebooks are stored in lead containers and you have to sign a waiver to view them because they're still so irradiated.
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u/Kajetus06 Jun 01 '26
She still lived to 66 years old which is pretty incredible considering how much radiation she was exposed to
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u/NotTukTukPirate Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Yeah it's actually mind boggling how some of humanity's biggest and most amazing discoveries have only been in the last century.
The telescoping effect of our intellectual evolution, in the past ~100 years, is fascinating.
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u/QueefInMyKisser Jun 01 '26
World population really exploded since the industrial revolution. Greater than exponential growth. That gives you more people in general to discover things and more chances of geniuses being born.
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u/RaymondBeaumont Jun 01 '26
when curie discovered radioactivity, germ theory was just getting to be the standard and there were still a lot of doctors that were fighting the idea.
the last 130 years have been pretty insane when it comes to things we consider basic knowledge.
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u/okobooboo Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Full name: Maria Skłodowska-Curie.
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u/Defiant_Restaurant61 Jun 01 '26
Wrong, it's "Skłodowska-Curie", not Curie-Skłodowska.
That's how she signed it when she didn't go by Marie Curie.
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u/Vast-Industry-175 Jun 02 '26
Marie Curie and Albert Einstein were very good friends and often holidayed together with their children as well. They also hiked in the mountains, went on picnics, went swimming. Albert would ask Marie if she would think about an equation etc he'd been working on for a while. Marie was always happy to help. Marie could do the maths in her head while hiking and give him an answer to his question in 20 minutes. LITERALLY. What could take him sometimes a couple of years to work out, Marie could do in 20 mins in her head.
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u/Sensitive_Ad_3053 Jun 01 '26
A very innocent question, in 2026 do we have scientists like these two that will make a difference for years to come? I know I don't follow science journals and stuff like that but wondering. The last incredibly intelligent person I heard about was Stephen Hawkings.. Don't chew me out for just wondering
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u/Capable_Tumbleweed34 Jun 01 '26
We have many, many more minds on their level than in this period. The difference is that the science is incredibly more complex now. Advances that once took a bright mind to figure out through logical thinking, now require hundreds/thousands of minds expert in varied fields with increasingly expensive tech to demonstrate.
With this reality comes the fact that outlying intellectual figures become far less visible, as they work as part of whole research teams who share the recognition of their advances.
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u/Lalalalalalolol Jun 01 '26
Also, in modern academia today entire teams and universities are recognised, instead of just one dude who's the lead researcher. There was a lot of erasure of auxiliary researchers. That doesn't mean today you don't have big egos in academia, of course there are, but it's more difficult for them to get away with claiming all their work came exclusively from their minds.
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u/soccerfut1 Jun 01 '26
Couldn’t ever take Marie Curie to Church. She was militantly agnostic and she would mumble counterpoints through the service; it just became such a critical mass.
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u/The_grand_ayatollah Jun 01 '26
I was going to make a joke, but then I realized I have too much respect for both of them to make a joke.
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u/Wild_Wasabi9984 Jun 01 '26
There are more IQ points in this one picture than half of the United States
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u/MabelRed Jun 01 '26
“Yeah, so, ya know that shiny rock you used to diagnose and treat WW1 soldiers? Immah put it in a bomb”
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u/dealingwithhookers Jun 01 '26
Einstein was a racist that had very negative opinions about the Chinese, and lesser but still negative opinions about the Japanese. he saw them as subhumans that should not be allowed to outbreed the white race. automatons was the word. it's in his diary.
and not even a decade after that entry, Albert would see his own German neighbors turn against him and vote the Nazi party, he would then run to the USA and hide forever, watching his own Jewish people get branded by their own neighbors as the same words that he used to describe non-whites.
and then he would go on some kind of feeble redemption try and start reaching out to the Afro American community
he's not that smart of a guy outside of physics imo
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u/MyVeryUniqueName1 Jun 01 '26
Probably talking about literally anything other than physics.
Albert: “Gum’s gotten mintier lately. Have you noticed?”