Rachel Swaby - Trailblazers: 33 Women in Science Who Changed the World

Most scientists and mathematicians arent simply born brilliant. They observe and experiment and test ideas as kids and then observe and experiment and test ideas as adults. By pushing the boundaries of what they think they know, again and again, they are able to uncover something new. This process takes time, but when youre chasing after something youre really interested ina better medication, for instance, or an unknown prehistoric creature, or a brand-new seascape deep below the surface of the oceanthe road to discovery can be positively thrilling.

This book offers a tiny glimpse at the rich history of contributions made by women to the fields of science, math, and technology. The thirty-three women included here are meant to inspire you with their extraordinary inventions and creative ideas, because you are the next generation of trailblazers who will fearlessly broaden our understanding of everything from the center of the earth to the most distant stars.

Wherever you live and whatever your age, your curiosity about the world can start right now. When Mary Anning was a child in England in the early 1800s, she found a piece of a fossilized animal in the seaside landscape around her home. She carefully dusted off the bones, making sure not to damage the specimen as she worked. Her discovery was massive. By investigating a piece of bone that sparked her interest, she found the worlds first ichthyosaur skeleton.

When Sophie Kowalevski was a child in Russia, she spent her days studying the walls in her nursery. On them was a collection of her fathers university worklithographed lectures of differential and integral calculus. They were complex mathematical equations hung up after her family ran out of wallpaper. Though she did not yet understand the equations, Kowalevski later wrote, I would stand by the wall for hours on end, reading and rereading what was written there. When she was a teenager, she plugged these equations into her lessons, accelerating through mathematics with energy and creativity. She went on to become one of the most promising mathematicians of her generation.

When the marine biologist and writer Rachel Carson was a child in the United States in the 1910s, she spent much of her time exploring her familys farm, collecting specimens and making observations: a fossilized fish, hopping birds, native plants. She started to write stories inspired by what she saw. A few of her pieces were even published in a popular childrens magazine. As an adult, she wrote a book called Silent Spring. Its publication is credited with jump-starting the environmental movement, including the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

When she was a child in Vienna, Austria, in the 1920s, Hedy Lamarr began studying the inner workings of everything from streetcars to printing presses. Lamarr eventually moved to Hollywood to be a film actressand a most successful one, at that. Although she was glad to be acting, she started inventing things in her free time. One of her ideas would eventually usher in technologies like Wi-Fi, which delivers Internet without a cord, and the Global Positioning System, which helps pinpoint our location so that we can get places more easily.

Each woman held her curiosity tightly, as if gripping the string of a kite, and kept at her quest for answers even when it became difficult. Until fairly recently, women faced open discrimination in school and in their work. (Discrimination still happens today; but its often harder to spot.) And yet the scientists and mathematicians here blazed their own path to discovery, understanding, and invention. Sometimes that meant setting up a secret lab, sometimes it meant examining a fragile cliff after a violent storm, and sometimes it meant looking farther, harder, and more often at the sky above us.

You can approach this book from many different angles: read it from cover to cover, dip in because there is a particular scientist you want to know more about, check out the contents page to find the topic you are most interested in, or read one entry every day. Youll likely want to share with your friends, family, teachers, or librarians some of the fascinating information you learn. For instance, kids and adults are surprised and fascinated to discover who invented windshield wipers! My goals, and yours, I hope, are to know more and to feel inspired.

A patent provides legal protection for an original idea. In 1809, Mary Kies secured the first-ever patent awarded to a woman, for a special technique in womens hat making that weaved straw with silk.

One hundred years later, Mary Anderson puzzled over how people could drive a car in the rain and snow when the precipitation prevented them from seeing clearly out the front window. In 1903, Anderson came up with a solution, patenting the indispensable windshield wiper, upon which we still rely to keep our car windows clear today.

In basic scientific research, scientists often pursue understanding without knowing exactly where it will take them. Theyre interested in something like how our bodies store and use energy, so they work to gain knowledge of those systems. That process is beautifully described by biochemist Gerty Cori, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine: As a research worker, the unforgotten moments of his life are those rare ones, which come after years of plodding work, when the veil over natures secret seems suddenly to lift and when what was dark and chaotic appears in a clear and beautiful light and pattern.