Vera Rubin, Simon Mitton
Vera Rubin, Simon Mitton
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Vera Rubin
A Life

Author: Simon Mitton, Jacqueline Mitton, Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Narrator: Elizabeth Wiley

Unabridged: 12 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/06/2022


Synopsis

The first biography of a pioneering scientist who made significant contributions to our understanding of dark matter and championed the advancement of women in science.

In Vera Rubin: A Life, prolific science writers Jacqueline Mitton and Simon Mitton provide a detailed, accessible overview of Rubin's work, showing how she leveraged immense curiosity, profound intelligence, and novel technologies to help transform our understanding of the cosmos. But Rubin's impact was not limited to her contributions to scientific knowledge. She also helped to transform scientific practice by promoting the careers of women researchers. Not content to be an inspiration, Rubin was a mentor and a champion. She advocated for hiring women faculty, inviting women speakers to major conferences, and honoring women with awards that were historically the exclusive province of men.

Rubin's papers and correspondence yield vivid insights into her life and work, as she faced down gender discrimination and met the demands of family and research throughout a long and influential career. Deftly written, with both scientific experts and general readers in mind, Vera Rubin is a portrait of a woman with insatiable curiosity about the universe who never stopped asking questions and encouraging other women to do the same.

About Simon Mitton

Simon Mitton is Life Fellow at St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge. He has written more than a dozen books on astronomy and the history of science and is fellow and a former vice-president of the Royal Astronomical Society.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nicole on April 03, 2021

An amazing book about a true scientific pioneer. Wonderfully written, engaging, and enlightening. Highly recommend.......more

Goodreads review by Jorge on April 03, 2025

Emocionante biografía de una de las más destacadas astrofísicas del siglo XX. Contiene una buena cantidad de anécdotas, lecciones de vida, personales y profesionales, excelentes datos curiosos e históricos sobre personajes relacionados y mejor aún, al ser escrita por profesionales de la astronomía,......more

Goodreads review by Mark on January 30, 2021

Over the course of a long and productive career, Vera Rubin proved a pioneer in a number of important respects. As an astronomer, she was one of the first to study spiral galaxies, and her work helped convince scientists of the existence of dark matter. As a woman living in America in the mid-20th c......more

Goodreads review by Jean-René on May 01, 2021

Vera Rubin, A Life Jacqueline Mitton and Simon Mitton, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021 by Jean-René Roy Vera Rubin was one of the outstanding astronomers of the 20th century. Jacqueline and Simon Mitton have written a solidly researched and outstanding biography of a remarkable woman s......more

Goodreads review by taylor on December 10, 2024

I am not sure what I was searching for when I typed the letter 'v' into the search box. Apparently I had previously looked up the Vera Rubin Observatory. I read the article, and either my memory is complete crap (p >.95) or I had never read it. A new observatory whose first light is to be early next......more