The animated podcast · Season 1: Einstein & Curie

Two geniuses sit down at the mic and tell their own story, with real letters, real dates and a fact-check on every claim.

Episode 1 · Brussels, 1911

The week Marie Curie went from Nobel to scandal

Einstein and Marie Curie record a podcast "today" and look back on the first Solvay Conference: physics cracking open, the most famous photo in science and, at the very same time, the Paris newspapers turning on Marie.

Episode 1 thumbnail: Marie Curie and the words From Nobel to scandal PREMIERES NOV 7 · 12 PM ET
8 min 40 sAI-generated voices · dialogue recreated from letters and records Open on YouTube ↗

Episode 2 · The Letter

"Don't read that drivel": a letter, a duel nobody fired and a Nobel they asked her to skip

Marie reads aloud the letter Einstein sent her from Prague on November 23, 1911. Then comes Langevin's pistol duel, a Nobel laureate asking her not to come to Stockholm, her answer, and the chemistry behind her second Nobel: how you isolate radium.

Episode 2 thumbnail: Marie Curie holding Einstein's letter PREMIERES NOV 23 · 12 PM ET
11 min 57 sAI-generated voices · the letters are real, in our own translation Open on YouTube ↗

Prague, November 23, 1911

Highly esteemed Madame Curie,

Don't laugh at me for writing to you without anything sensible to say. But I am so furious at the vile way the public dares to busy itself with you that I simply have to let it out. I am sure you despise this rabble, both when it pretends to adore you and when it uses you to feed its hunger for scandal.

I must tell you how much I have come to admire your mind, your energy and your honesty. I count myself lucky to have met you in Brussels. Anyone who is not one of these reptiles is glad that we have among us people like you and Langevin, real people, in whose company one feels privileged.

If the rabble keeps busying itself with you, simply don't read that drivel. Leave it to the reptile it was cooked up for.

A. Einstein

Our own abridged translation from the German original in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, vol. 8. For a full published translation, see B. Schwarzschild, Physics Today (2005).

The wildest autumn of 1911

From the conference to the Nobel, day by day

The episodes squeeze these dates into one conversation. Here is the real order, with each source listed at the bottom of the page.

  1. Oct 21
    "A witches' sabbath"Rushing to finish his report, Einstein writes to his friend Michele Besso calling the upcoming conference a Hexensabbat.Sánchez Ron; Lambert (2015)
  2. Oct 30 – Nov 3
    First Solvay Conference, BrusselsHotel Métropole. Topic: the theory of radiation and the quanta. Marie is the only woman; Einstein, 32, gives the last report, on specific heats.Straumann (2011); Rocci & Lambert (2024)
  3. Nov 4
    The headlineFront page of Le Journal, by Fernand Hauser: "A love story: Madame Curie and Professor Langevin".Constructing a Nobel Prize (2024)
  4. Nov 7
    The telegram from StockholmOn her 44th birthday, Marie learns she has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The same day Einstein, back in Prague, writes to a friend defending her: "an honest person, without pretensions".Constructing a Nobel Prize (2024); Sánchez Ron
  5. Nov 8
    Marie answersLe Temps prints her letter: she calls the intrusion of the press and the public into private life abominable.Constructing a Nobel Prize (2024)
  6. Nov 17
    A reference letterIn the middle of the scandal, Marie writes to the Zurich Polytechnic recommending Einstein for a professorship.Lambert (2015)
  7. Nov 23
    The letters published · and a letter from PragueGustave Téry's magazine L'Œuvre prints the stolen letters. That same day, Einstein writes to Marie (Episode 2). Afterwards, a crowd gathers at her house in Sceaux; a stone is thrown, and the family takes refuge with the Borels.Constructing a Nobel Prize (2024)
  8. Nov 25
    The duelLangevin challenges Téry: one bullet each, at 25 meters, in the Parc des Princes, at 10:50 am. Neither man fires. Langevin's seconds are the chemist Albin Haller and the mathematician Paul Painlevé.Constructing a Nobel Prize (2024); Le Journal, Nov 26, 1911
  9. Dec 1
    "Don't come"Svante Arrhenius, who had nominated Marie for the prize, writes asking her not to travel to Stockholm because of Langevin's "ridiculous duel".Constructing a Nobel Prize (2024)
  10. Dec 5
    Marie's reply"The prize was awarded to me for the discovery of radium and polonium." Scientific work and private life, she writes, have nothing to do with each other.Constructing a Nobel Prize (2024)
  11. Dec 10 – 14
    StockholmWith her sister Bronia and her daughter Irène, 14, Marie receives her second Nobel: the first person in history with two. On Dec 11 she lectures on "Radium and the new concepts in chemistry"; on Dec 14, 300 Swedish women students give a banquet in her honor.Constructing a Nobel Prize (2024); Nobel lecture
  12. Dec 26
    "The ruins of Jerusalem"Einstein's verdict to Besso: the conference looked like "a lament over the ruins of Jerusalem", and nothing positive came out of it.Sánchez Ron; Straumann (2011)
  13. Summer 1912
    The English hideawayStill ill, Marie spends two months with her daughters in a house on the English coast, secretly hosted by the physicist and suffragist Hertha Ayrton. She returns to the lab at the end of 1912.Bruton (2018); Constructing a Nobel Prize (2024)

Who's who

The Solvay photo, name by name

Twenty-four people. Three already had a Nobel that November; six more would win one later. Marie sits at the table next to Poincaré; Einstein is second from the right, standing next to Paul Langevin.

The 1911 Solvay photo as redrawn in the episode, with Marie Curie, Henri Poincaré and Albert Einstein circled

Seated, left to right

  1. Walther Nernst Nobel 1920
  2. Marcel Brillouin
  3. Ernest Solvay
  4. Hendrik Lorentz Nobel 1902
  5. Emil Warburg
  6. Jean Perrin Nobel 1926
  7. Wilhelm Wien Nobel 1911
  8. Marie Curie Nobel 1903 & 1911
  9. Henri Poincaré

Standing, left to right

  1. Robert Goldschmidt
  2. Max Planck Nobel 1918
  3. Heinrich Rubens
  4. Arnold Sommerfeld
  5. Frederick Lindemann
  6. Maurice de Broglie
  7. Martin Knudsen
  8. Friedrich Hasenöhrl
  9. Georges Hostelet
  10. Édouard Herzen
  11. James Jeans
  12. Ernest Rutherford Nobel 1908
  13. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes Nobel 1913
  14. Albert Einstein Nobel 1921
  15. Paul Langevin

Look at Solvay. He wasn't in the room when the photo was taken: his portrait was pasted in afterwards for the official version. That's why his head looks too big. (Straumann, 2011)

Play

Fact or fiction?

Twelve claims about autumn 1911. Some are in the episodes; others only in the sources.

Correct 0 of 0 answered

How the script was checked

Every claim, a source

Before release, every fact was checked against a paper or a book. In Episode 1, two checks changed the video; in Episode 2, three changed the script.

ClaimResultSource
Ep. 1 · Brussels, 1911
Einstein gave the last report, on specific heatsconfirmedStraumann; Rocci & Lambert; Sánchez Ron
Einstein called the conference a "witches' sabbath"correctedHe wrote it before the conference (letter of Oct 21). The video now says so. Sánchez Ron; Lambert
The idea came from Nernst; Solvay wanted to present his own theoryconfirmedStraumann; Rocci & Lambert; Sánchez Ron
Marie seated next to Poincaré; Einstein standing next to Langevinconfirmedphoto captions in Straumann and Sánchez Ron
Pierre Curie and Laborde measured the heat of radium in 1903confirmedComptes rendus 136, 1903 (about 100 calories per hour per gram)
Rutherford proposed the nucleus in 1911confirmedPhil. Mag. 21, 669, May 1911
The Le Journal headline ran on Nov 4, 1911confirmedConstructing a Nobel Prize
A crowd and a stone at Marie's house; refuge with Camille MarbocorrectedIt happened after Nov 23, after the Nobel news. The video changed the order. Camille Marbo is the pen name of Marguerite Borel. Constructing a Nobel Prize
Marie's statement to Le Tempsconfirmedpublished Nov 8, 1911 Constructing a Nobel Prize
Order: headline, Nobel telegram, published lettersconfirmedNov 4, Nov 7, Nov 23 Constructing a Nobel Prize
Ep. 2 · The Letter
Einstein's letter to Marie, Nov 23, 1911confirmedCollected Papers, vol. 8; Physics Today (2005) Constructing a Nobel Prize
Einstein wrote after reading the letters in L'ŒuvrecorrectedSame day, but he had been reacting to the papers since Nov 4; in Prague he hadn't seen the magazine. The episode says so.
The letter to Zangger: "not attractive enough to be a danger"confirmedNov 7, 1911 Sánchez Ron (CPAE 5)
Duel of Nov 25: one bullet at 25 m, nobody firedconfirmedConstructing a Nobel Prize (Le Journal, Nov 26, 1911; Marbo)
Painlevé, Langevin's second, later prime ministerconfirmedSep–Nov 1917 and Apr–Nov 1925 Britannica
Arrhenius asked Marie not to come; she replied on Dec 5confirmedConstructing a Nobel Prize (Karin Blanc, Bibnum, 2018)
The chemistry of isolation: decigrams per ton, thousands of crystallizations, atomic weights from 138 to 226.45, metallic radium in 1910correctedWe dropped the date "atomic weight in 1902", which the lecture doesn't give. Nobel lecture, Dec 11, 1911
Marie proposed in 1900 that the atom transformscorrected"Two years before Rutherford", not "before anyone": Elster and Geitel had a similar idea in 1899. Hurwic (1979)
Hertha Ayrton hid Marie and her daughters in summer 1912confirmedtwo months, in a house on the English coast Bruton (2018)
Irène won the 1935 Nobel with Frédéric JoliotconfirmedIrène Joliot-Curie's Nobel lecture, Dec 12, 1935

Still without a source: the line "I heard about it at the hotel" (Ep. 1). Still to check in the German original: the exact word of praise in the Nov 23 letter ("energy" or "creativity"). The dialogue is recreated; the facts behind it are not.

How it's made

A dramatization, not a documentary

Genius Talk imagines two scientists who have read their own biographies and sit down to set the record straight. The story is real; the conversation is not.

Real sources

Letters, newspapers of 1911 and peer-reviewed history of science. Each fact is listed above with its source.

Recreated dialogue

The characters speak in a modern podcast voice. When they quote a letter, the words come from the letter, in our own translation.

Synthetic voices

The voices are generated with AI and designed for the show. They don't imitate any recording of Einstein or Curie. Music, sound and drawings are original.

Jokes, declared

Anything invented for a laugh is flagged in the "Fact or fiction" segment at the end of every episode.

Teacher kit

Bring an episode to class

Each episode fits at the start of a lesson, and the chapters let you play just one part. Free to use in class; please link back to this page.

Physics · high school

Physics cracking open

Ep. 1, chapter 2:22. Why did classical physics predict infinite energy in the ultraviolet? What changes when energy comes only in packets of E = hf?

Chemistry · radioactivity

Radium that heats itself

One gram of radium gives off about 100 calories per hour with no fuel at all. Where does that energy come from?

History · social studies

Two geniuses, two presses

Ep. 1, chapter 5:38. The papers attacked Marie for being foreign, Polish and a woman. The same year, Einstein was treated as a prodigy. Why?

Chemistry · separating mixtures

How do you isolate radium?

Ep. 2, chapter 6:49. Radium and barium are in the same group; fractional crystallization, repeated thousands of times, pulls them apart. Why does an atomic weight climbing from 138 to 226 prove it's a new element?

English · ethics

Two letters

Ep. 2. Compare Einstein's letter (above) with Marie's reply to Arrhenius: what does each one defend? Write your own message of support to someone attacked unfairly.

Any subject

Fact-checking

Give each group three claims from Fact or fiction and ask them to find a source for each. Then compare with the fact-check table.

The season

Episodes

Episode 2 premieres on November 23, 2026, exactly 115 years after Einstein wrote his letter to Marie.

  1. 1Brussels, 1911
    Solvay, the quanta and the scandal    Nov 7
  2. 2The Letter
    the letter, the duel and the second Nobel    Nov 23
  3. 3The Elevator
    hiking the Swiss Alps in 1913    in production
  4. 4The Little Curies
    X-ray cars in World War I    coming
  5. 5Geneva
    both at the League of Nations    coming
  6. 6He Doesn't Play Dice
    Solvay 1927 and quantum mechanics    coming
  7. 7Uncorrupted by Fame
    Marie's farewell and Einstein's tribute    coming

Working titles; they may change.

Go further

Sources

  1. F. J. Lambert. Einstein's witches' sabbath in Brussels: the legend and the facts. Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 224, 2023–2040 (2015). doi:10.1140/epjst/e2015-02521-9
  2. Constructing a Nobel Prize: The Case of Madame Curie. Physics in Perspective (2024). doi:10.1007/s00016-024-00320-x
  3. N. Straumann. On the first Solvay Congress in 1911 (2011). arXiv:1109.3785
  4. A. Rocci and F. J. Lambert. The Solvay Councils, de Broglie's brothers, and the development of wave-particle duality (2024). arXiv:2411.18524
  5. J. M. Sánchez Ron. Albert Einstein: su vida, su obra y su mundo, ch. 10, "El Consejo Solvay de 1911".
  6. From Röntgen to Marie Curie. In Remarkable Physicists, Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511535345.008
  7. E. Rutherford. The scattering of α and β particles by matter and the structure of the atom. Philosophical Magazine 21, 669–688 (1911). doi:10.1080/14786440508637080
  8. P. Curie and A. Laborde. Sur la chaleur dégagée spontanément par les sels de radium. Comptes rendus 136, 673 (1903). text on Wikisource
  9. A. Einstein to M. Curie, Prague, Nov 23, 1911. Transl. B. Schwarzschild, Physics Today (2005). physicstoday.aip.org
  10. M. Curie. Radium and the New Concepts in Chemistry. Nobel lecture, Dec 11, 1911. nobelprize.org
  11. J. Hurwic. La contribution de Marie Curie à l'explication de la nature de la transformation radioactive. Revue d'histoire des sciences 32, 339–343 (1979). doi:10.3406/rhs.1979.1643
  12. E. Bruton. The life and material culture of Hertha Marks Ayrton. Science Museum Group Journal (2018). doi:10.15180/181002
  13. I. Joliot-Curie. Artificial Production of Radioactive Elements. Nobel lecture, Dec 12, 1935. nobelprize.org
  14. Paul Painlevé. Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com