Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar - Summary - Inspiring Lives - Lesson Two

Subrahmanyan Chandrashekhar (S C)

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Subrahmanyan-Chandrasekhar

This summary is divided into four parts. 

Part One - Life in Lahore: 

S C was born in born in Lahore on 19th October 1910. His father was working in the North-Western Railways. His mother was an intelligent woman. She translated Henrik Ibsen’s play ‘Dolls House’ into Tamil in those days. She had big dreams for her children. S C didn’t receive formal education or schooling. His parents taught him, and he had private tuitions till the age of 12.  S C was the nephew of C V Raman, the Nobel Laureate who discovered the Raman Effect. 

 

Part Two - Life in Madras: 

Arrived in Chennai in the year - 1918. 

1922 - 1925 - Hindu High School - Triplicane. (Trivia - Kamal Hassan studied in the same school)  

1925 - 1930 - Presidency College Madras - (B. Sc Science - Honours) 

He was awarded Government of India Scholarship to study at Cambridge University 

 

Part Three - Life in England:

Studied Astronomy and Physics 

Worked with two leading astrophysicists - Edward Milne and Sir Arthur Eddington 

1933 - Completed PhD and was selected for a fellowship of Trinity College. 

He was interested in Astrophysics 

Special interest in Sir Arthur Eddington and Ralph Flower studies on stellar evolution or cycle of stars. 

S C found some errors in the theories of Sir Arthur Eddington’s book - ‘The Internal Constitution of Stars’. Stars also die and they become like Earth-sized objects. This last phase in the life of a star is known as ‘white dwarf’. Eddington in his books said that all stars become white dwarfs. S C said only stars of modest or low masses will become white dwarfs. Not the big ones. He calculated and said that stars with greater than 1.44 times the mass of our own Sun will be white dwarfs. This limit which was calculated by S C is known as Chandrashekhar’s Limit. The high mass stars will eventually become black holes and they have powerful gravitational pull. 

 S C’s theories were criticized by Sir Arthur Eddington. S C left Trinity and he moved to the USA.  

 

Part Four - Life in the USA: 

He emigrated to the US and came out with his theory of black holes. 

In 1936, he married Lalitha Doraiswamy. 

In 1937, he joined as a Research Associate at York Observatory - University of Chicago.

He published ten books on Astrophysics. Some of the books are - Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure, Principles of Stellar Dynamics, The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes. 

S C and his wife became victims of racism in America. Both became citizens of the US in 1953. 

He couldn’t find intellectual stimulation in India to advance his career in Astrophysics. 

He was the Editor of the Astrophysics Journal for 19 years. 

He guided over 50 students to their PhD. 

Two of the students - Lee and Yang won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957. 

S C won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983. 

He died on 21st August 1995.

 

Madras, Malayalam Cinema and Memory Studies

Was toying with this idea of writing a short note on a Malayalam movie and its connection to Madras. There are many cinematic representations of Madras in Malayalam cinema, but this movie is close to my heart. The movie is Nadodikattu ( Vagabond/Wandering Wind) and it has Mohanlal and Sreenivasan playing the lead roles. The movie became a success and two more movies came featuring the iconic characters of Vijan and Dasan. The movie is rich because of ideas like migration, nostalgia, acculturation and memory. Two unemployed youth arrive on the shores of Madras. They are duped by an agent who makes them believe that Madras is Dubai. The movie reminds one of the numerous movies in Malayalam which portrayed the Malayali experience in the Gulf. (You can do a quick search in Google to get the list) Some of the movies which I recommend are Arabikatha, Diamond Necklace and even Pathemari. In Nadodikattu, we can see many landmarks in Chennai like Anna Nagar Tower Park, Mount Road, and the most iconic monument in Beasnat Nagar/Elliots Beach – The Karl Schmidt Memorial. Elliot’s Beach is named after Edward Elliot. During the Colonial era, the place was exclusively used by white people. The memorial on the beach is dedicated to a European sailor who drowned in 1930 trying to save the life of a girl. The girl was saved. Karl Schmidt died. The Madras Governor built the memorial. Madras is celebrating Madras Week and all the newspapers have exclusive content about the Madras Week celebrations. The US Consulate had tweeted some archival photographs to commemorate the event. One is the photograph taken when Martin Luther King addressed the gathering at Presidency College. This evening there is a webinar on the topic Memorialization of Post Colonial Spaces which is organized by Christ University, Bangalore. Hope some of you will attend the same. The flyer regarding the same was posted in the group a few days ago. Other topics which can be explored connecting movies and memory studies are 

 

1. The life of film stars ( Rajanikanth, Sreenivasan)  in the lanes of Kodambakkam

2. How the studio culture shifted to Ramoji Flim City from Madras

3. The transition from the Analogue to the  Digital 

4. Movies as Digital Memories

5. Iconic landmarks in Chennai and Movies ( There was an interesting article by the film 

    historian Mohan Raman in the Times of India (Chennai edition)

Justice of the Peace - Infographics

 

Justice of the peace: Summary

 

The poem is a conversation between a powerful man known as the Justice of Peace and a poor farmer. The state official is trying to seize the land of the poor farmer. The main theme of the poem is about the inequality in our world. In India, we always talk about the rich-poor divide and we say that the rich are getting richer and the poor is getting poorer. Two words which we should keep mind are - Landlord and Tenant.

 

In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker i.e. the Justice of Peace clearly tells the poor farmer that there is a difference is what they both own. The only things that the farmer possess are his shirt, a brimless hat and half a coat. The Justice of peace says that he is the kind lord of 50,000 acres of land. A land which he describes as fat which means that it is rich and fertile. Justice of Peace says that he has a right over that land. The stanza ends with a question - Do you understand?  We can see that the person who is supposed to maintain peace and give justice is threatening the poor farmer. He is threatening him to seize his land. 

 

In the second stanza, the word ‘right’ is many times along with the word ‘because’. Through these words, he makes it clear that is powerful and nobody can question his power and authority. He gives a piece of advice by telling the small farmer to be calm and good. He also asks him to obey the rules, to know his position in life and not to fight. He cannot fight against the goad - which is a weapon used to drive the cattle away. The goad has spikes (A thin, pointed piece of metal, wood) or thorns which will make even the farmer finally agree with the government. Justice of Peace describes demos - people as uncleanly if they start resisting the land takeover. Demos may also refer to democracy where everyone has an equal right. 

 

The third stanza, we listen to the poor farmer asking the Justice of Peace why he should feel jealous about his small estate. He adds that he is not jealous of the hat and shoe worn by Justice of the peace. This shows how greedy people are. Reminds us of the quote by Gandhiji - The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.' Justice of Peace replies that it is stupid for the poor farmer to fight economic power. He also suggests that it is the fate of the poor farmer that he should sell his land. The last two lines of the stanza again show the power of Justice of Peace - He says I have got the upper hand and I will keep it as it is. The question is repeated - Do you understand? 

Mother Teresa - Infographics

Infographics prepared by Premjith Mathew  

Flowers, Onam and Kamala Das

This is a rejoinder to the post by Dr Rufus on flowers which was posted in RR on Saturday. The day that was posted was a special day for Keralites. It was Atham. Exactly after 10 days, the harvest festival of Onam is celebrated. One of the highlights of Onam is the Pookkalam or the Flower Carpets. Groups of children carrying flower baskets to collect flowers from the neighbourhood is a common sight during these ten days. (Onam is a memory for the expatriate and that memory is commodified beyond imagination) Today, the sight of children with flower baskets is a rarity because flowers are brought from the neighbouring states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Places in Karnataka like Nelamangala as well as some parts of Tumakuru, Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts are famous for their flower farming. In Tamil Nadu, the places where flowers are grown are Thovalai, Dindigul, Madurai, and Salem. This year, due to the pandemic the Kerala government has urged the public not to visit the markets to purchase flowers. The public is encouraged to get flowers that are found or grown in the neighbourhood. So, this year, everyone is getting a chance to explore their front yard and the backyard. (Reminds me of the poem Journey to the Interior) There is also an interesting connection between collecting flowers and Kamala Das aka Madhavikutty aka Kamala Surayya. During one Onam season, she travelled the length and breadth of Kerala to see the flowers. She even ventured into the forest of Kerala to see the flowers. After returning from the trip, she told that of all the flowers that she saw, the beauty of the wildflowers attracted her the most. They are hidden and bloomed in some unknown corners of the forest. Nobody came to pluck these flowers and they were not used in the Pookkalam. References to flowers are quite common in the stories of Kamala Das. One reference is to the blooming Neermathalam, called the Caper tree in English. Interestingly a group of women planted a Neermathalam tree in Trivandrum and fondly named it Madhavikutty. The space near the tree is used for literary meetings, a corner for them to sit, read, chat, make phone calls, or not do anything at all. They even planted a Mangosteen tree in the near vicinity in remembrance of Vaikom Mohammed Basheer who sat under the tree to converse with the public. Kamal Das is also a good reference for the themes of eroticism and feminism.

The Justice of the Peace - Hilaire Belloc

The Justice of the Peace - Hilaire Belloc

Distinguish carefully between these two, 

This thing is yours, that other thing is mine.

You have a shirt, a brimless hat, a shoe 

And half a coat. I am the benign

Of fifty hundred acres of fat land

To which I have a right. You understand? 

I have a right because I have, because 

Because I have, because I have a right.

Now be quite calm and good, obey the laws, 

Remember your low station, do not fight 

Against the goad, because, you know it pricks

Whenever the uncleanly demos kicks. 

I do not envy you your hat, your shoe. 

Why should you envy me my small estate? 

It's fearfully illogical of you

To fight with economic force and fate.

Moreover, I have got the upper hand, 

And means to keep it. Do you understand? 

Vocabulary based on Mother Teresa - Inspiring Lives - Chapter 2

 

Dress in Communication - Infographics

 

Lest we Forget Series - 5 - Bertolt Brecht

Fast heavy feminine breathing sound amplified through the speakers, a stage that is drenched in red light, and the sudden screaming of a male character. This is what I remember from the drama which I had seen in my school days. The title of the drama is Brahamarakshu, a stage production which dealt with the usual trope of a woman taking revenge on her abusers. Watching the drama was an extension of the childhood memories of listening to the elders discussing ghosts and supernatural tales which was the only time when children were hooked to the otherwise boring discussions about money and business. Brahamarakshu and other demonic figures are part of the collective memory of every child India. This morning I read about an article about the way Bengali women were looked upon as enchantresses by Bihari women who believed that their husbands who went to Bengal for work were trapped by these sorceresses.  The media/digital memories of Sushant Rajput and Rhea Chakraborty episode has rekindled this cultural memory involving Biharis and Bengalis. Bengal like Kerala was a place which was known for its leftist theatrical productions. Badal Sircar was part of my syllabus and I remember trying to make head and tail out of his play Evam Indrajit. When I shifted to Chennai for my studies and to earn a livelihood, drama became a powerful influence in my life. I remember watching Girish Karnad's - ‘Heap of Broken Images directed by Alyque Padamsee. It was a great feeling to see the director himself seated in a row just behind me watching his play. During the MA days, my classmates had performed the Doll’s house. The most recent theatrical presentation which I had seen was the stage adaptation of K.R. Meera's Bhagavante Maranam during the Kozhikode Literature Festival 2020. The play is based on the killings of M.M Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar. I also dabbled in a stage production when I was in MCC. The play was tilted - Man - An awakening and it was inspired by the Diaries of Anne Frank. One of my students who was part of the crew is now a famous theatre personality in Chennai. His name is Varun Aiyar. He has gone beyond the conventional boundaries of a theatre or stage. Thanks to Dr Archana of Anna Adarsh, I was able to reconnect with Varun a few months ago. As I look back at my memories related to theatre, I can see that it has moved from the trivial to the social, from the emotional to the rational. The need to develop a conscience has become a priority. Theater heavily relies on memory and it helps us to remember the past and it speaks to the future. It was in M.A I came across this play - Mother Courage and Her Children by the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht. I have seen his ideas at play in the theatre productions of Jesuit brothers in my hometown, in the street theatre projects organized by the department of MSW at Loyola. Theatre is one way to cultivate critical thinking skills among both teachers and students. Lest we Forget Bertolt Brecht whose death anniversary is today. 

 

 

Lest We Forget Series August 13 - Florence Nightingale

My earliest memory of a hospital is when my brother was hospitalized with typhoid. He was in the hospital for more than one week before he was discharged. The hospital had a view of the Arabian sea and locally it was known as the Beach hospital. Our neighbours, Menon uncle and Shanta aunty worked in the hospital. Aunty was the head nurse and uncle was the administrative officer. It was a different experience to see aunty in her medical uniform as I have seen her always in civilian clothes. I could also see her as a person who was thoroughly devoted to her profession. She was in charge of a team of junior nurses. Beach hospital opened in the year 1957, reminds us of the colonial past of the city of Kozhikode aka Calicut, a place fresh in the public memory because of the recent crash of AXB-1344 flight and the historical landing of Vasco da Gama in the year 1498) I remember the early morning sight of the white uniform-clad nurses moving through the corridors of the hospital as the early morning sun rays filtered in through the tinted glass windows. The scene was both ethereal and out of this world. Nurses from Kerala have travelled to the remote corners of the country and the world. Nurses trained in Kerala work in the U.K, the U.S, Australia and in the Middle East. Like Vasco da Gama, the women of Kerala were able to travel and see the world. The social stigma attached to the profession in terms of the dress, handling of male patients never stopped this exodus of trained nurses. They all brought back memories of the new lands they have seen and experienced. Back home there were strikes and demonstrations organized by the UNA ( United Nurses Association) demanding better pay and work routine for the nurses. Memories of these protests were digitally shared and celebrated. The Nipah outbreak and the death of nurse Lini Puthussery inspired a film director to make the movie Virus which catalogued how a society won the medical war. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the creation of a literary genre known as Pandemic literature. Slavoj Žižek in his book Pandemic – COVID19 shakes the World, talks about the act of touching another human being which has become a memory today. He quotes John 20:17 where Jesus tells Mary Magdalene not to touch him. We are living in a world where you cannot touch people physically. Žižek says you can only touch a person from within – in the spirit of love. This is what the nursing profession reminds us. I would like to share an anecdote from the book by Laura E Richards. A group of military and naval officers met for dinner after the Crimean war. Someone posed a question – Who, of all the workers in the Crimea, will be longest remembered? Everyone was asked to write the name in a piece of paper. After some time, when they examined the small bits of paper every one of them had written – Florence Nightingale – Lest we forget her - The Lady with the Lamp was born today. 

Mother Teresa - Summary - Inspiring Lives Lesson 2

Timeline of events: 

1. She was born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje (pronounced skope-yey) in Macedonia. 
2. She was fascinated by the stories of the lives of the missionaries and their service. 
3. She decided to follow a religious style of living at the age of 12
4. At the age of 18, she joined the Sisters of Loreto and she left home. 
5. She learned English from Ireland and came to India in the year 1929 to teach school children.
6. She chose the name Teresa and she started serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in Calcutta. 
7. She was disturbed by the poverty she saw in Calcutta. 
8. She began her missionary work in the year 1948 replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton sari decorated with a blue border.
9. She adopted Indian citizenship and ventured into the slums and started helping the hungry and the homeless. 
10. She had to beg on the streets of Calcutta to find an income to support her charity services. 
11. On October 7,1970 she started Missionaries of Charity. 
12. It started as a small society with 13 members and today it has more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS care centres, refugee care centres and charity centres worldwide. 
13. In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying where people could die to dignity. 
14. ‘A beautiful death’ she said ‘is for people who lived like animals to die like angels’
15. She opened a home for people suffering from leprosy known as Shanti Nagar along with several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta. 
16. In 1995 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children’s Home for the orphans and the homeless youth. 
17. By 1996 she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. 
18. Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983. In April 1996 she fell and broke her collar bone. 
19. On March 13, 1997, she stepped down as the head of the Missionaries of Charities and she died on September 5, 1997. 
20. In the year 1962, she was awarded the Padmashree by the Indian government 
21. In 1980 she was awarded India’s highest civilian award the Bharat Ratna.
22. In 1979 Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She donated the amount she received to the poor of India. 
23. When receiving the award, she was asked the question - What can we do to promote world peace? She answered - ‘Go home and love your family’

Lest We Forget Series 3 - August 12 - Ian Fleming

Childhood was a time when I was enamoured by the adventures of the Famous Five, Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew series. As I grew up the fascination shifted to something more visual like television programmes like the Giant Robot, Street Hawk, and Knight Rider. The world of video games also opened up in the form of Road Rash and the Need for Speed series. One of the big screen spectacles which grabbed my attention was the James Bond movies. The Crown Cinema hall in my hometown is where I saw many of the Bond movies. I remember waiting in the serpentine queue to grab the tickets and looking at the posters and the colourful movie stills kept in the bulletin board. James Bond is like Sherlock Holmes – the created became more popular than the creator. James Bond still lives in the public memory (The release of the 25^th movie - No Time to Die - is delayed because of the pandemic) the UK was able to exert its soft power over the world through the James Bond franchise. The flag of the UK is emblazoned in almost all the gadgets used by Bond. So you can see Bond using a parachute with the Union Jack imprinted on it in the Swiss mountains or driving a car with the UK flag painted on the bonnet of the car. Bond movies became more like an advertisement for UK tourism. The colonial memory was also rekindled through Bond movies like Octopussy which was shot in Rajasthan, India. 007 exists also as an example of the commodification of memory with thousands of dollars/ pounds earned through the sale of 007 memorabilia. There are different ways the movie retained its place in the collective memory. The movies showcased exotic locations from around the world. The movies had gadgets and technology which were futuristic - a watch equipped with a laser ray or a car which can be converted into a weaponized submarine. The portrayal of the bonding between Bond and M is another way the movies have stayed in public memory. The movie Skyfall takes the fans for a trip down the memory lane. Skyfall is the name of his childhood ancestral home in Scotland. M becomes more like a surrogate mother to him. There is also an observation made by a researcher Janet Woollcott who talks about the way women are specularised and made objects of the male gaze. The one-liners from the Bond movies have stayed popular ( My name is Bond, James Bond) and they are almost as popular as Shakespearean quotes. One of the reasons why every cinephile remembers Bond movies is because of the sheer number of movies released. We were not allowed to forget Bond. Lest we forget the creator Ian Lancaster Fleming whose death anniversary is today. They are almost as popular as Shakespearean quotes. One of the reasons why every cinephile remembers Bond movies is because of the sheer number of movies released. We were not allowed to forget Bond. Lest we forget the creator Ian Lancaster Fleming whose death anniversary is today. 

 

References:

1)     Ian Fleming:- A personal memoir of the Man who created James Bond – Robert Harling 

 

2)     Geopolitics, Gender and Genre: - The Work of Pre-title/Title sequences in James Bond Movies – Linda Racioppi and Colleen Tremonte 

Lest We Forget Series 2 - August 11 - Alex Haley

 

In the year 2000, I completed MA. My dissertation was based on Alex Haley’s Roots. Why did I select this book for my research? Maybe it was the movie Amistad I had seen which was released in the year 1997. The movie chronicles the life of slaves in a slave ship. Maybe it is because of the frequent visits to the USIS Library and watching the Friday movie screenings which also included the movie ‘Driving Miss Daisy’. USIS also celebrated the African American History Month every year in the month of October. The narrative structure of Roots is similar to the novel I am reading right now - Manushyanu Oru Aamukham (A Preface to Man) - The description is given after the title can be applied to both the novels - The Saga of (an American/Malayali) Family. Roots is also a novel which easily falls into the description used by Dr E.V Fatima to label Manushyanu Oru Aamukham. She described the classic by Subash Chandran as ‘a cultural mnemonic work’. Roots can also be described as a ‘racial mnemonic work’. It is a reminder of the past. Like Sherman Alexie’s works about Native Indians, Alex Haley is creating a ‘memory window’ for the African Americans. He invites the readers especially the young African Americans to look through the window and see their glorious past as a dream first and then as a collective nightmare. The memories of pain and humiliation are brought back. What the Americans forgot - ‘the racial injustice amnesia’ was remembered through this book. 44 years after the publication of this book, the African Americans are living in a world where new digital memories are still haunting them. The statues and busts of slave owners including Thomas Jefferson were destroyed to remove bad memories. The hashtag #blacklivesmatter gained momentum and its ripples were seen in as far as Australia. Kneeling on one knee became a way to protest and it reminded the world about the ideas of equality and brotherhood. Lest we Forget - Alex Haley who was born today. 

 

Vocabulary - Dress in Communication

All the visual cards are designed and prepared by Premjith Mathew

All the visual cards are designed and prepared by Premjith Mathew

 

All the visual cards are designed and prepared by Premjith Mathew

Lest We Forget Series 1 - August 10 - Phoolan Devi

 

Let me begin with a childhood memory. A family trip to see the Taj Mahal. A time when Taj Mahal was famous (only) as the eternal monument of love. The train journey cut across the Chambal ravines. I and my brother were informed about the stories of dacoits or dakus. Our imagination was fuelled by the train robbery scene in the movie Sholay which we had seen many times. Both of us watched with excitement as the train entered the Chambal ravines, expecting a horde of dakus to follow our train. Chambal ravine was the place which led to the birth of Phoolan Devi aka the female Robinhood of the Chambal. Sher Singh Rana, her assassin talked about how he remembered the killings she did in Behmai. She remembered how she was kept as a captive in the village and she took revenge on her attackers. In Kerala, political parties remember the crimes committed against them and take revenge after many years. The religious majority in Amritsar never forgot Operation Blue Star and that memory killed the first woman PM of India. The ethnic majority in the Eastern Province never forgot IPKF and this memory led to the killing of a PM few kilometres from where I live today. Phoolan Devi was a heroine to India’s outcasts, the subject of movies, books, comics. She even became an elected MP. Her crime was to defy an ancient system. She reminds me of the Afghan girl who killed two Taliban militants when they attacked her parents. Phoolan Devi was worried about the way women were treated in India. She told her interviewer that the women are treated as ‘secondary citizens’. She was illiterate but she was able to recollect her life and convert it into a 2000-page typescript. Lest we forget her - The Bandit Queen - Phoolan Devi was born today. 

 

References: 

1.     The Bandit Queen of India: An Indian Woman's Amazing Journey from Peasant to International Legend - Book by Marie-Thérèse Cuny, Paul Rambali, and Phoolan Devi. 

2.     Outlaw: India's Bandit Queen and Me by Roy Moxham. 

 

Video Lesson - Marie Curie - Inspiring Lives - Lesson 1

Marie Curie - Video Lesson 

Reflections- Prose 1 - Dress in Communication - Summary

 

The first lesson in the book Reflections talks about the need to dress properly. The lesson says that the dress is also part of the communication process. 

 

Communication and Dress

What you wear can make you or break you in many situations. Your clothes can be your best friend or your worst enemy.  90 per cent of what people remember about a meeting is related to non-verbal communication. When people meet, they make judgements about each other based on appearance alone. This is true of a job interview setting.  Your dress gives non-verbal clues about your personality, education, background, financial status and integrity. Your dress can either break down barriers or launch careers.

 

William Thourlby’s book: 

In his book ‘You are what you Wear, William Thourlby says that - ‘You are what you wear and dress accordingly’.  He adds that the clothes will not compensate for poor qualifications, poor work records or bad habits, but a person who has dressed appropriately and is well-groomed can open doors. In our society ‘looks’ have specific meanings. A person with dirty, messy appearance, untidy hair and crumpled clothes, no matter the reason, conveys the message, - ‘I don’t care’. A person who is well-groomed dressed appropriately and in good taste can attend a business function or meeting and, in most cases, be readily accepted. 

 

Textures and Lines

Textures and lines of clothing also spread silent messages. Soft texture tends to invite human contact and closeness. Crisp textures may indicate that a person wants to be regarded as efficient. Lines of clothing can provide some clue on the personality. Clothing is the only visible clues to our personality. Our dress may also reveal anger, aggressiveness, uncertainty or depression.  The knowledge of nonverbal non-clothing clues will be useful also in interacting with them on a daily basis. The visual code of dress can enhance your ability to related to others. Your outward appearance and demeanour will influence how others will react to you. Your dress will help you to become more confident in your abilities and judgements and it will also lift your self-esteem. 

Second Year - III Semester Syllabus

Marie Curie - Summary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_CurieAdd caption

A Life filled with tragedies: 

Marie Curie was born on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, Poland. She was called Manya by her parents.  She had to face some tragedies in life. Eldest sister died of typhus when Manya was only eight years old. Her mother died less than three years later. The rulers of Russia ill-treated the people in Poland.

 

Childhood and Education: 

She was different from others because she was famous for her good memory. Her father used to read classics of literature. Since her father was a scientist, the children were exposed to science right from childhood. Manya was brilliant and always secured the first rank in the class. At the age of 16, she won a gold medal for completing her secondary education. Women were not allowed to join the University. She had to join an illegal night school. She was a believer in the power of education.  To support her family, she became a tutor to a family in the countryside. She helped her sister to become a doctor in Paris. 

 

Life in Paris: 

Manya's sister invited her to Paris. There she changed her name to Marie, and she met great physicists in the Paris university. She worked far into the night to achieve something in the field of science. She studied Physics and Mathematics and quickly received her master's degree in both the subjects. 

 

The Curies:

She began her research in magnetism in Lipmann's Research Laboratory. In the spring of 1894, she met Pierre, a young scientist. They got married on July 25, 1895, and together they were known as the Curies. The Curies were interested in the research of Uranium and this led to the discovery of Radioactivity. The Curies then discovered the new element called Polonium which was named after Poland. Marie received her Doctor of Science in June 1903. The birth of her two daughters Irene and Eve in 1897 and 1904 did not stop Marie from doing her scientific work. She worked as a teacher and she taught science based on experimental demonstrations. Pierre Curie was offered the position of Director of the Physics Laboratory at the University of Sorbonne. Unfortunately, he was killed in an accident on April 19, 1906. 

 

Her contributions to Science: 

The post was offered to Marie Curie and she became the first woman to become the Director of a research lab. She continued her research even after the death of a husband. She focused on radioactivity. In 1911, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for discovering pure radium. She discovered that radiation could kill healthy human cells and it could also kill diseased human cells. She used radium for killing tumours. She set up the Radium Institute at the University of Paris. During World War 1, Marie Curie designed the X-ray machine with the help of her daughter. She also designed the first mobile X-ray machine. She travelled far and wide, delivered lectures and inspired thousands of young scientists. She died because of her exposure to the radium. The condition was known as aplastic anaemia. 

 

Why do we remember her? 

We are able to treat Cancer because of her inventions. 

Modern atomic clocks and computers were invented because of her

She didn't have money and space. Sometimes she had to wait for years to get the result. 

She is the only woman in human history to win two Nobel Prizes

Her discoveries led to path-breaking research in nuclear physics. 

She was the first woman in Europe to receive a doctorate in Science. 

She was the first female lecturer, professor and head of the laboratory at the Sorbonne University in

Paris. 

She was the first woman to receive 15 Gold medals, 19 degrees and many honors.

Welcome to the new semester