Marie Curie [third from left front row] is the first scientist to have won two Nobel Prizes, and only one of two to have won them in two different disciplines. This picture was taken at The Solvay Conference, probably the most intelligent picture ever taken in 1927.

In this picture are some of my favourite scientists such as Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger [Schrödinger’s Cat], and Werner Heisenberg [popularly known for his Theory of Quantum Mechanics].

Marie Curie was the first to realise that an atom’s disintegration over time released radiation. Following this, “Carbon dating” was developed after the half-life of carbon was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie.

Science has made great strides thanks to radiometric dating, which has disproven the idea that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.

Carbon dating has helped us piece together the history of human migration.

As it turns out, this is all thanks to a story inscribed in the charcoal found in our forebears’ bones, which we were only able to decipher after learning about subatomic particles.

On the flip side, we can now accomplish more in less time than ever before because to our technical prowess.

Nowadays, we want everything to occur instantaneously, or at least in “real-time.”

Similar developments have inspired a group of businesspeople to finance a 10,000-year clock, dubbed the “Clock of the Long Now.” The designers of this clock intended it as a gesture toward the future.

The question is whether we will think strategically for the future or whether we will allow the present dictate our actions.

The question is whether we’ll go the high-frequency trading route or the route of respectable posterity.

Only time will tell.

“This is the paradox of our age. On the one hand, we have short attention spans and an ability to measure time in minuscule increments. But, on the other, we are able to trace human actions back to thousands of years and also have an appreciation for the fact that this advance was 500 years in the making.” — Steven Johnson

---

Source and thanks to: How we got to now by Steven Johnson

#FunFact: The Curie family is known as the Family Nobel Laureates for having been awarded the most Nobel Prizes, with four prizes won by five individual laureates. Marie Curie received prizes in Physics [1903] and Chemistry [1911]. Her husband, Pierre Curie, shared the 1903 Physics prize with her. Irène Joliot-Curie received the Chemistry Prize in 1935 together with her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie. In addition, the husband of Marie Curie’s second daughter, Henry Labouisse, was the director of UNICEF when it won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965.