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The Genius of Marie Curie - The Woman Who Lit up the World

Multi-layered documentary revealing the human story of Marie Curie, whose pioneering research on radioactivity made her the world's most famous female scientist.

Over 80 years after her death, Marie Curie remains by far the best-known female scientist. In her lifetime, she became that rare thing - a celebrity scientist, attracting the attention of the news cameras and tabloid gossip. They were fascinated because she was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize and is still the only person to have won two Nobels in two different sciences. But while the bare bones of her scientific life, the obstacles she had to overcome, the years of painstaking research and the penalty she ultimately paid for her discovery of radium have become one of the iconic stories of scientific heroism, there is another side to Marie Curie - her human story.

This multi-layered film reveals the real Marie Curie, an extraordinary woman who fell in love three times, had to survive the pain of loss, and the public humiliation of a doomed love affair. It is a riveting portrait of a tenacious mother and scientist, who opened the door on a whole new realm of physics, which she discovered and named - radioactivity.

1 hour

Last on

Sun 7 Mar 2021 23:45
BBC Four

Clips

See all clips from The Genius of Marie Curie - The Woman Who Lit up the World (2)

Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:16

    The National

    England

  • 00:17

    The National

    Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks

  • 00:52

    Django Reinhardt

    Echos De France

Credits

Producer Gideon Bradshaw
Director Gideon Bradshaw
Presenter David Malone
Presenter Geraldine James
Executive Producer Marcus Herbert
Executive Producer Jonathan Renouf
Participant Julie Des Jardins
Participant Patricia Fara
Participant Malgorzata Sobieszczak-Marciniak
Participant Renaud Huynh
Participant Andrea Sella
Participant Helene Langevin-Joliot
Participant Helena Pycior
Participant Jean-Luc Pasquier
Participant Tereza Kaczorowska

Broadcasts

  • Fri 3 May 2013 21:00
    BBC Two except Northern Ireland & Wales
  • Sat 4 May 2013 22:40
    BBC Two Northern Ireland & Wales only
  • Mon 13 May 2013 23:20
    BBC Two except Northern Ireland
  • Sun 19 May 2013 23:00
    BBC Two Northern Ireland
  • Tue 18 Aug 2015 22:00
    BBC Four
  • Thu 20 Aug 2015 02:00
    BBC Four
  • Mon 16 May 2016 23:00
    BBC Four
  • Tue 17 May 2016 03:00
    BBC Four
  • Mon 18 Dec 2017 00:00
    BBC Four
  • Thu 21 Jun 2018 21:00
    BBC Four
  • Fri 2 Aug 2019 01:30
    BBC Four
  • Sun 7 Mar 2021 23:45
    BBC Four

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