Biographies

A trailblazing scientist made famous by her favorite primates, Jane Goodall will forever be linked with the chimpanzees that she's studied for over fifty years. A pioneer in scientific research, she revolutionized longstanding views about chimps, forest conservation, and women in scientific fields.

The five centuries from CE 1300 to 1800 marked the end of a rich period of cultural, mathematical, and scientific advancements in China, India, and Arabic countries, while witnessing new intellectual life in Europe and the western hemisphere.

From 700 BCE to CE 1300, thousands of scholars from many different civilizations introduced mathematical ideas that established the foundations of arithmetic, number theory, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, as well as the related sciences of astronomy and physics.

Many important inventions were developed by female scientists and everyday girls with an innovative nature. Discover their stories from Anna Sutherland Bissell, inventor of the carpet sweeper, to Elizabeth "Elsie" MacGill, the first woman aircraft designer in the world.

From the discovery of penicillin to the theory of evolution to the demonstration of sex-linked inheritance, here are individuals who beat the odds and pioneered their way to a permanent place in the scientific community. Cullen discusses a variety of scientists, including Charles Darwin, Carl Linnaeus, Gregor Mendel, and James D. Watson.

From the discovery of the process of nuclear fission to an explanation of the nature of light, from the theory of special relativity to advancements made in particle physics, here are pioneers who overcame tremendous odds to make significant breakthroughs in physics. Cullen focuses on some the field's brightest minds and most well-known figures, including Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, Michael Faraday, and Sir Isaac Newton.

Beginning with a journey through space as Albert Einstein rides on a light beam, Hakim takes a lively and accessible look at the theory of relativity, chaos theory, and string theory, showing throughout how the greatest scientific discoveries often begin with the simplest questions about our world.

Charles Darwin and his wife, Emma, were deeply in love and very supportive of each other, but their opinions often clashed. Emma was extremely religious, and Charles questioned God's very existence.

With nothing more than a small pile of once-forgotten science textbooks and an armory of curiosity and determination, William Kamkwamba embarked on a daring plan to bring his family a set of luxuries that only 2 percent of Malawians could afford and what the West considers a necessity -- electricity and running water.

Rachel Carson combined her love of science and writing in her award-winning and controversial book, Silent Spring. Revealing the dangers of pesticide use, it brought readers a new awareness of man's contamination of the environment and ultimately led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Early computers required teams of white-coated scientists to keep them running, yet one of those giant behemoths could not match the computing power of a single microchip today. This is the history of computers and a celebration of the human ingenuity that led the world from ENIAC to iMAC.

Through Marcy's research, more extrasolar planets have been discovered than ever before. New techniques for probing deep space with a powerful telescope developed by his team are changing how all scientists view the galaxy.