Her notebooks sit in a French library inside lead-lined boxes, and anyone who wants to read them puts on protective gear first. They will stay dangerously radioactive for centuries. Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw in 1867 under Russian imperial rule, into a family ruined financially for its part in Polish uprisings. Her eldest sister died of typhus caught from a lodger the family had taken in for rent money. Her mother died of tuberculosis when Maria was ten, and watching both waste away ended her Catholic faith and pushed her toward what could be measured. Barred from university as a woman, she studied at the Flying University, a clandestine network that admitted women and kept changing locations to stay ahead of Russian authorities.

She and her sister Bronisława made a pact: Maria would work as a governess and send her wages to Paris  ...