Forces of Nature
The Women who Changed Science
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
From the ancient world to the present women have been critical to the progress of science, yet their importance is overlooked, their stories lost, distorted, or actively suppressed. Forces of Nature sets the record straight and charts the fascinating history of women’s discoveries in science.
In the ancient and medieval world, women served as royal physicians and nurses, taught mathematics, studied the stars, and practiced midwifery. As natural philosophers, physicists, anatomists, and botanists, they were central to the great intellectual flourishing of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. More recently women have been crucially involved in the Manhattan Project, pioneering space missions and much more. Despite their record of illustrious achievements, even today very few women win Nobel Prizes in science.
In this thoroughly researched, authoritative work, you will discover how women have navigated a male-dominated scientific culture – showing themselves to be pioneers and trailblazers, often without any recognition at all. Included in the book are the stories of: Hypatia of Alexandria, one of the earliest recorded female mathematiciansMaria Cunitz who corrected errors in Kepler’s workEmmy Noether who discovered fundamental laws of physicsVera Rubin one of the most influential astronomers of the twentieth centuryJocelyn Bell Burnell who helped discover pulsars
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This expansive history from Reser and McNeill, historians and coeditors of Lady Science magazine, sheds light on women's contributions to science throughout history. For women, they note, participating in science "was a constant clawing at the edges of spaces where they were not permitted," and the authors survey how women have shaped scientific discovery in ways not captured by traditional historical archives. Starting in antiquity, the authors capture women whose discoveries have been overlooked: women practiced medicine in ancient China, for example, but only men wrote about it and considered women's practices outdated. The 12th-century mystic Hildegard of Bingen, meanwhile, proposed a cosmological model of the universe that was only taken seriously because she was believed to have "divine vision" and to be "speaking for God." Maria Cunitz, a 17th-century mathematician and astronomer, is responsible for "the earliest surviving work of science written by a woman," and Elizabeth Elmy "enlisted botany in her feminist cause" in 1895. The authors cover an impressive amount of ground, and the condensed profiles peppered throughout keep things moving. Full of eye-opening information, this unique perspective on women's history will enthrall history buffs, science enthusiasts, and feminists.
