Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles & Momentous Discoveries - Softcover

McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0970225601 ISBN 13: 9780970225603

Publisher: Kensington Pub Corp, 1998

Synopsis

Since 1901 there have been over three hundred recipients of the Nobel Prize in the sciences. Only ten of them -- about 3 percent -- have been women. Why? In this updated version of Nobel Prize Women in Science, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne explores the reasons for this astonishing disparity by examining the lives and achievements of fifteen women scientists who either won a Nobel Prize or played a crucial role in a Nobel Prize - winning project. The book reveals the relentless discrimination these women faced both as students and as researchers. Their success was due to the fact that they were passionately in love with science. The book begins with Marie Curie, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in physics. Readers are then introduced to Christiane Nusslein-Volhard, Emmy Noether, Lise Meitner, Barbara McClintock, Chien-Shiung Wu, and Rosalind Franklin. These and other remarkable women portrayed here struggled against gender discrimination, raised families, and became political and religious leaders. They were mountain climbers, musicians, seamstresses, and gourmet cooks. Above all, they were strong, joyful women in love with discovery. Nobel Prize Women in Science is a startling and revealing look into the history of science and the critical and inspiring role that women have played in the drama of scientific progress.

About this title

From the Author:

New edition with new chapter about latest Nobel winner.
NOBEL PRIZE WOMEN IN SCIENCE is a collection of biographies about 15 women who either won a Nobel Prize in science or contributed significantly to a Nobel Prize that someone else won.

This expanded edition adds a new chapter about Christiane Nuesslein-Volhard, the biologist who won a 1995 Nobel for discovering the genes that govern the early development of embryonic insects, fish, mice, and people.

NOBEL PRIZE WOMEN IN SCIENCE asks why only ten women--compared to more than 300 men-- have won Nobel Prizes in science. That’s a mere three percent. Why so few?

The women in this book worked in widely diverse fields, including medicine, biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, and mathematics. But many of them had to overcome enormous hurdles to pursue their research. They worked in home and basement laboratories and in attic offices. They crawled behind furniture to attend science lectures. They worked as volunteers in universities for decades without pay--in the United States as late as the 1970s. Given the enormousness of the problems they faced and the importance of the discoveries they made, the real question to be asked about these women is not "Why so few." A better question is "Why so many?" As one of them noted, "Never before have so few contributed so much under such trying circumstances."

These are objective but inspiring stories. They interlace explanations, anecdotes, and quotations. Although the science is painlessly and accurately described, there’s enough detail to interest scientists. And reviewers have liked the fact that the book "neither preaches or screeches" but allows the facts to speak for themselves.

To research the book, I interviewed the surviving women themselves and more than 200 of their associates. Barbara McClintock, for example, granted interviews to only two writers during her lifetime. I was one of them.

About the Author:

Sharon Bertsch McGrayne

About this edition

• Publisher: Kensington Pub Corp
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0970225601
• ISBN 13: 9780970225603
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 451