Customer Reviews

Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles, and Momentous Discoveries, Second Edition

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The book is a little heavy to read but is very absorbing. Both the science and personal attributes of the women reviewed are documented in a matter-of-fact manner with few distracting adjectives. You can easily read about one or all of the women and cross referencing of events is well done. I found it enthusing whilst doing a PhD in an area of few women. I have no struggle compared to the trials relayed in this book. Not for a light reader.

Remarkable book. The lives and challenges of these women are faithfully described, not only detailing their careers but their personalities as well. These women become more than names mentioned in textbooks, and these accounts of their lives allow them to become inspiring women. The accounts have more science than an average reader would probably like (as a bio major, I loved the detail), but I can guarantee they will find this book interesting all the same. I especially liked the way the author corrected the misconception of Rosalind Franklin as given through Dr. James Watson's account, "The Double Helix."

Why so few? This is the question which the author put on the first page of the book. More than 300 scientists have won the Nobel Prize since its establishment,however, only 10 of them are women. Why? Why have so few women won the Nobel Prize in science? Some people might say this small number could be evidence for old prejudices. But the author tried to find a different answer through this book. This book contains stories of 15 women scientists who won the Nobel Prize or had a critical role in Nobel Prize winning works. Although this book takes the style of a biography and also describes all the scientific details quite well, it is neither just a biography nor just a science book for general readers. It is more than both of them. These women scientists had gone through lots of difficulties. All of them had experiences of being rejected from the opportunity of receiving a higher education. Most of them had more than once been mistreated and disregarded of their abilities as well as their works. And some of them, such as Rosalind Franklin, still have not received the full credit which she deserves. One might say that all the scientists who did remarkable works had faced and overcome many kinds of difficulties. But these women had to carry the added burden of being "women scientists". So, as the author pointed, another question should arise when the book is finished. Why so many? Why have so many women challenged themselves with such difficult works in spite of all the obstacles? The answer is simple. They loved science. And, through this book, the readers will find a love and a understanding for these fearless women as well as their lover,science.

McGrayne chronicles the discrimination faced by female scientists in the 20th century. Even by those who would eventually achieve the highest prize of the Nobel. She also includes biographies of a few women who never won the Nobel, but were acknowledged later by many to have merited it. Lise Meitner, of course. She was doubly disadvantaged. Being female and Jewish in Germany during the 1920s and 30s. The story of how Otto Hahn won the Physics Nobel shortly after World War 2 for work that he did jointly with her is well known to physicists.

Jocelyn Bell's work on pulsars is also described. Bell's advisor would later garner the Nobel for this, though Bell made the crucial observations and deductions from those.

Both these chapters can be exercises in frustration to a reader. Injustices that were never remedied. Though Bell is still alive, and so there is a chance that the Nobel committe might redress this oversight.

Nobel Prize Women in Science is a superb collection of hour-long biographies of women who either won a Nobel Prize or worked on a project that won a Nobel Prize in science. The biographies are full of memorable vignettes and quotes and lucid explanations of the scientific discoveries. This reader found the book liberating because it debunked so many myths she had had about good scientists. This book makes great bedtime reading and excellent gifts for both men and women.

I was enthralled by this delightful, healing, and eye opening crediting over the wonder works of scientific endeavor made by woman--unsung heroines who did not flinch one bit from their true calling, what for all the drowning out and dumbing down of class ostracism inundating them and their sisters in their times. These Ladies are the truest measure of what is called a benchmark in the progress of humanity to wake up and rise to The Greatest Challenge: to free the mind, the spirit, the yoke of history's circumstance, to unite us in peace, recognition, respect, and unqualified defference to all who carry forth the Light. From my heart, Thank You Sharon Bertsch McGrayne! And for those for whom it is easier to quip, 'a woman's place is in the home, raising children and so forth....' I'll just add, we got BILLIONS of 'em.

Science historian Sharon McGrayne has a way of capturing the reader's attention in the first few sentences. Take her chapter on Lise Meitner, who interestingly did not win a Nobel Prize but should have done and is therefore rightly included in this book.

Here is how McGrayne opens her chapter, "Using a private entrance, Lise Meitner entered her basement laboratory_and stayed there. A former carpentry shop, it was the only room in Berlin's chemistry institute that she was permitted to enter. No females_except, of course, cleaning women_were allowed upstairs with the men... "

In this chapter we learn of Meitner's childhood and upbringing, and her struggle to become a woman physicist against all odds. We hear about her attending lectures by Boltzmann and later Planck who became one of her supporters. Meitner's biggest discovery was to explain the mechanism of nuclear fission or perhaps to explain to Hahn and Strassmann that fission was actually taking place since they could not understand why their own bombardment of a uranium nucleus should produce something so much smaller as a barium nucleus. This was because up to that point radioactivity had only produced changes in atomic number of one or two units.

The story of Meitner's having to flee Nazi Germany is interwoven into the scientific story to reinforce this wonderful account.
The reason why Meitner was ignored by the Nobel Prize people is examined as is Hahn's refusal to attribute any significance to her contribution. This is history of science at its best with the science and human story receiving equal attention and just at the right pace.

Eric Scerri
author of "The Periodic Table, Its Story and Its Significance" and "A Very Short Introduction to the Periodic Table".

I have read this book off and on over the past ten years. As an women who has worked in IT for 25 years in a mostly male dominated profession, this is a must read. There are so many questions still unanswered regarding women in technical and scientific professions, however reading these women's stories about their accomplishments, regrets and passion for their work is absolutely inspiring. I will pass this book to my two girls as they get older, in hopes of inspiring them that they can and should forge ahead no matter what.

This is a wonderful book, a must read !
It tells about the women passionate for science, their struggle and achievements.

I found this book really excellent--I was coming at it from being a female scientist (chemist) myself. Good from beginning to end....no complaints!