5 Pairs Of Scientists (and Intellectuals) Who Worked Together
The list of names of scientists and intellectuals who have achieved great achievements is endless. However, these characters are often listed individually, when the truth is that many of them worked side by side with their partners and formed a true team
In today’s article we bring you 5 couples of scientists and intellectuals who worked together and gave each other support. Their collaboration resulted in great milestones in the history of science, literature and other fields. Let’s look at some of these interesting couples.
Many of the romantic couples in history have been united by a mutual interest in some intellectual or scientific field. On so many occasions, it has been precisely this shared hobby that has contributed to the strength of their relationship, even though, like any couple, there may sometimes have been ups and downs. Don’t miss the following list, which includes some of these couples, many of them almost unknown.
1. Monsieur and Madame Roland
Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière and his wife, Marie-Jeanne Philipon (better known as Madame Roland) formed one of the most famous and consistent duos of the revolutionary intelligentsia. Both had been educated in an enlightened environment, characteristic of the 18th century, and they shared republican ideals that made them rejoice with the outbreak of the French Revolution
The intelligence of Marie-Jeanne, “Manon” to those close to her, was legendary. The woman had an innate talent for philosophy and for the pen; Not in vain, she helped her husband, who held a political position, to write his speeches and her reports, correct them and clean them up. At their home in Paris, the Hôtel Britannique, the couple received the great intellectuals of the time.
Despite their initial support for the Revolution, the Rolands soon realized that events were taking a bloody turn that they did not like at all. The support they gave to the moderate faction of the Convention, the Girondists, signed their death sentence Jean-Marie Roland fled Paris to save his neck, but his wife didn’t have time. Manon died by guillotine in November 1793; Shocked by her pain, her husband committed suicide days later, when he learned the news.
2. Marie-Anne and Antoine Lavoisier
We do not leave revolutionary France to meet our second couple of intellectuals; It is this occasion, specifically, of chemicals. And the Lavoisiers formed a solid tandem that dedicated much of their time and efforts to the study of chemistry.
Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze was barely fourteen years old when she was urged to marry a man three times her age Fortunately, the girl’s father, scandalized by her, interceded to find her another suitor more suited to her, and finally engaged her to a colleague of his, Antoine Lavoisier, a prestigious lawyer and chemist. In reality, the age difference between her and Antonie was also considerable (he was twenty-eight years old, fourteen older than the young woman) but Marie-Anne’s father sensed that they shared character and tastes and that the union could be successful.
So it was. Marie-Anne, curious and intelligent, took an early interest in her husband’s research, and soon joined him in her laboratory to help him with her task. Madame Lavoisier not only took exhaustive notes of Antoine’s observations, but, as she was an excellent draftsman, she was in charge of making the diagrams and drawings necessary to illustrate the investigations. Hungry for knowledge, she learned quickly, to the point that she is known as “the mother of modern chemistry.”
Unfortunately, the Revolution came to cut everything short. Accused of treason, Antoine Lavoisier was executed in 1794, even though his wife moved heaven and earth to save him She herself was imprisoned, although she managed to cheat death with the end of the Terror. And, although she remarried another scientist, he never let her collaborate in her work. She ended up divorcing her second husband and she always kept the surname Lavoisier.
For many critics, without his wife Olivia, Mark Twain would never have been Mark Twain And the writer was always assisted by his tireless wife, who advised him on writing, gave him advice and became his editor.
The two met through Twain’s brother, and together they went to a reading of Charles Dickens. Mark Twain (at that time still Samuel Clemens, his real name) was absolutely captivated by Olivia’s languid beauty, that type of dying beauty that 19th century artists so esteemed. The courtship was arduous; Up to four times she rejected his offers of marriage. She finally gave in, and the two married in 1870.
In addition to being an unconditional supporter of Twain, Olivia was also a writer and a fervent abolitionist. Constantly ill, her health was declining precipitously in the last decades of her life, which was not helped in any way by the premature death of her daughter Susy at only twenty-four years old. She died in 1904, and her husband, broken by the loss, followed her in 1910
4. Robert and Sonia Delaunay
The names of Robert and Sonia Delaunay are closely linked to the Parisian bohemia of the early 20th century. And they constitute two of the greatest painters of the first decades of the century, who worked side by side and conscientiously in the study of color and its expressive capacity in the world of art
When they met, Sonia (Ukrainian by birth) was married to Wilhelm Uhde, whom she had joined purely out of convenience, to avoid being deported back to Russia. But the attraction that the two artists felt was so intense that, in 1910, the young woman divorced Uhde to marry Robert, from whom she would never separate.
Together they would work tirelessly until their death, experimenting with the juxtaposition of color and with all the possibilities that artistic creation offered; Sonia even dared, with enormous success, to design advertising and objects They are, without a doubt, one of the most charismatic couples in the history of art.
5. Marie and Pierre Curie
Without a doubt, it is one of the most famous couples in the history of science And it seems practically impossible to separate Marie from Pierre Curie, her husband, partner and colleague in her scientific research.
Real name Maria Sklodowska, Marie Curie was a young woman very interested in science who emigrated from her native Poland to Paris at the end of the 19th century to expand her knowledge. At a time when university women were very rare, Ella Marie graduated from the Sorbonne in 1893 and received her doctorate a decade later.
In Paris she met the physicist Pierre Curie, professor at the Sorbonne, whom she married in 1895 and with whom she began a close scientific collaboration, as a result of which they discovered, in 1898, two new elements: radium and polonium In 1903, the husband and wife were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, an award that Marie would repeat, in chemistry in this case and alone, in 1911. After Pierre’s death, his wife took up his position as a professor at the Sorbonne, which It made her the first woman in France to hold such a position.
