pickI love when the tone of science non-fiction surprises me. I think doing a tandem read with the print and audiobook helped in this case, because matching audio to speed of print reading gave the narrator a consistently clear, yet palpably upbeat tone, and it was wonderful to hear the audiobook narrator skillfully pronounce all the French words and names, along with a smattering of other European/Eastern European designations. 1/?
“scintillate in green“ Sounds like fun, fancy weekend plans. 💚❇️✨☺️
Scintillate:
1)emit flashes of light; sparkle.
2) Physics
fluoresce momentarily when struck by a photon or charged particle
Beautiful response, awesome brother - and brother-in-law!
so-soI really wanted to like this, but it was like the author couldn‘t find enough information about the 35 (!!!) women that worked in the Curie lab to make their stories engaging, and so relied on MSC‘s life (which is perhaps better told elsewhere?) and on snippets of chemistry to fill in the gaps. Lack of focus, and the verbatim retellings of slanderous and misogynistic letters/newspaper articles/etc were a bit triggering, too, as a scientist.
pickInteresting book (500+ pages) I would have liked to read more slowly, but the library wanted it back.
Science and religion are not the mutually-unintelligible strangers/enemies they're often assumed to be, but more like siblings who at various times support and want to throttle one another, with frequent squabbles over house room. NS has it all boil down to two questions: "What is the nature of man?"* and "Who has the authority to decide?"
so-so77/150 I think the title was misleading. The author does do a good job of keeping the science simple, while discussing heady topics like cosmology, astrophysics, plate tectonics, geological history and the origins of mankind. I did find the author's attempts at humor kind of heavy handed, but I understand not wanting to make the science too heavy and dull. 3 ⭐⭐⭐
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Sobel leaves space for an important function of history: not forgetting. Not forgetting how recently the overwhelming misogyny of the patriarchy had its grip somewhat loosened on so-called enlightened scientific institutions, and how that has affected the history of women 7d
What really struck me as a new piece of information in the picture of her position in history was how much she loved and missed her husband, those moments where in his honour, she deferred/transferred honours that would otherwise have 7d
I liked the mixing in, the introduction of different (male and female) scientists and their experiments, getting windows into the related science of the time. In that it was often discovering elements and the parts of an atom, it reminded me of 7d
⚠️ miscarriage 7d