[Illustration: PIERRE CURIE IN 1906. Hellog Dujardin Dujardin Imp. Ch. Wütmann] PIERRE CURIE BY MARIE CURIE _Translated by CHARLOTTE AND VERNON KELLOGG_ WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MRS. WILLIAM BROWN MELONEY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES BY MARIE CURIE _ILLUSTRATED_ NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1923 Copyright, 1923, By MARIE CURIE. "It is possible to conceive that in criminal hands radium might prove very dangerous, and the question therefore arises whether it be to the advantage of humanity to know the secrets of nature, whether we he sufficiently mature to profit by them, or whether that knowledge may not prove harmful. Take, for instance, the discoveries of Nobel--powerful explosives have made it possible for men to achieve admirable things, but they are also a terrible means of destruction in the hands of those great criminals who draw nations into war. I am among those who believe with Nobel that humanity will obtain more good than evil from future discoveries." PIERRE CURIE, _Nobel Conference, 1903._ TRANSLATORS' NOTE The translators wish to acknowledge their obligations to Dr. R. B. Moore, Chief Chemist, U. S. Bureau of Mines, and an American authority on radium, who kindly read the whole translation in manuscript in order to assure its accuracy as to the technical details referred to by Madame Curie in her account of the work of her husband and herself on radium. PREFACE It is not without hesitation that I have undertaken to write the biography of Pierre Curie. I should have preferred confiding this task to some relative or some friend of his infancy who had followed his whole life intimately and possessed as full a knowledge of his earliest years as of those after his marriage. Jacques Curie, Pierre's brother and the companion of his youth, was bound to him by the tenderest affection. But after his appointment to the University of Montpellier, he lived far from Pierre, and he therefore insisted that I should write the biography, believing that no one else better knew and understood the life of his brother. He communicated to me all his personal memories; and to this important contribution, which I have utilized in full, I have added details related by my husband himself and a few of his friends. Thus I have reconstituted as best I could that part of his existence that I did not know directly. I have, in addition, tried faithfully to express the profound impression his personality made upon me during the years of our life together.