In 1911, the world still had more than a hundred years before Taylor Swift's "Shake it Off" would be released. So the second best coping mechanism for dealing with haters happened, and it was in the form of a letter from the man who came up with the theory of relativity. I mean, it's not a bad way to get advice. When she was receiving criticism for her work based on the fact that she was a woman, an atheist, and rumored to be Jewish in an anti-semitic region, Marie Curie received a letter from Albert Einstein that basically said to ignore the haters. The letter was recently discovered by David Grinspoon and put on the internet to give us a glimpse into the kind of eloquent support these secret science bros gave each other, way after all her haters were long dead.
Now, a lot of things have changed in the past century, but unfortunately we know that trolls like the ones who were going after Curie are still around (and any string of YouTube comments in existence can prove it). That's what makes so much of Einstein's letter still ring true today. In fact, if you read it and then break it down piece by piece, you can give the whole thing a modern translation. Here's the original letter Einstein sent Curie:
Translation:
Dear Mrs. Curie,
I'm totally pissed and I just gotta say something about it. Even though I'm sure you ignore the rumor mill because you're way too cool to waste your time on that, let me clarify: they all suck, because you're ridonk smart and ambitious and we had a kickass time in Brussels. F*** the haters.
A. Einstein
P.S. Science science science.
Of course, Curie probably didn't have to be told how awesome she was because at this point she'd already won a Nobel prize, and would be remembered as a pioneer in the research of radioactivity. Still, the fact that these two amazing scientists had each other's backs is a reason to smile today, even if it happened way before any of us were born.
Images: Wikimedia Commons; Einstein Papers
