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Certein bodies... become luminous when heated. Their luminosity disappears after some time, but the capacity of becoming luminous afresh through heat is restored to them by the action of a spark, and also by the action of radium.
Marie Curie
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Certain materials can emit light when heated, and this property can be rejuvenated by a spark or radium.

In this quote, Marie Curie emphasizes the transformative properties of certain bodies that can become luminous when subjected to heat. The idea that these materials can regain their luminosity through specific actions, such as a spark or exposure to radium, illustrates the concept of renewal and the persistent potential for change, reflecting deeper principles in nature and the scientific process.

Themes

LuminosityHeatTransformationRenewalScience

In practice

Example use cases

In a science class discussion on luminescence.

More from Marie Curie

Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.
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I tried out various experiments described in treatises on physics and chemistry, and the results were sometimes unexpected. At times, I would be encouraged by a little unhoped-for success; at others, I would be in the deepest despair because of accidents and failures resulting from my inexperience.
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I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. We should not allow it to be believed that all scientific progress can be reduced to mechanisms, machines, gearings, even though such machinery has its own beauty.
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The sensitive plate, the gas which is ionised, the fluorescent screen, are in reality receivers, into another kind of energy, chemical energy, ionic energy... luminous energy.
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During the year 1894, Pierre Curie wrote me letters that seem to me admirable in their form. No one of them was very long, for he had the habit of concise expression, but all were written in a spirit of sincerity and with an evident anxiety to make the one he desired as a companion know him as he was.
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In 1903, I finished my doctor's thesis and obtained the degree. At the end of the same year, the Nobel prize was awarded jointly to Becquerel, my husband and me for the discovery of radioactivity and new radioactive elements.
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