Svante Arrhenius and Marie Curie are considered to be pioneers of physical chemistry and radioactivity, respectively, were not always considered the great chemists that they are today. Arrhenius originally spent years researching the passage of electrical current through dilute salt solution and he was reluctantly given his doctorate from the University of Uppsala. He knew that he was in possession of a revolutionary theory, but he was forced to censor his findings for his doctorate board. Following the receipt of his doctorate, Arrhenius searched desperately to find an established chemist that saw the potential in his work. After receiving no support from a number of notable chemists, Wilhelm Ostwald enthusiastically took Arrhenius under his wing. Along with Van’t Hoff, the three musketeers spent years preparing to release irrefutable proof of their theories. The opposition was fierce, but ultimately the three musketeers were successful. Marie Curie was faced with a different, deeper rooted obstacle – the male domination of all scientific fields. Initially, many scientific minds contributed Marie Curie’s success with the isolation of a polonium salt to the efforts of her husband Pierre. However, following his tragic death Marie was determined to continue their work. In 1910 Marie successfully isolated the metal radium and was never again considered to be a poor scientist because she was a woman. The problems encountered by Arrhenius may very well be faced today. Often times it is easier to hold on to proven theories and simply shun new theories than look into the validity of a claim. It is probable, however, that there would be less resistance to such claims due to the documentation required to publish an article, as well as the relatively high probability of at least one other group of scientists testing the claim’s validity. The gender barrier faced by Marie Curie is not a major concern anymore, although some bias will always persist. The gender barrier is likely to have been replaced by today’s barriers of racial and religious prejudice (1).

References

(1). B. Jaffe. Crucibles: The Story of Chemistry, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, USA, (1976) pp. 164-196.