Emily Holland - Scientists Who Dared to Be Different

Throughout history, scientists have used their brilliance, insight, and imagination to improve the quality of our lives. They have reduced our chances of suffering from serious diseases, revolutionized our understanding of the planet on which we live, and flown into the unknown to explore the Universe. Even more strikingly, some scientists have made achievements of this sort in the face of extraordinaryeven seemingly unsurmountablechallenges.

Here, we take a tour of some of the worlds most courageous and resilient trailblazers in the field of science. These are people whose social status, gender, mental or physical health, or unusual ways of thinking might easily have prevented them from achieving anything significant in their livesbut whose determination, passion, courage, and hard work mean they have made spectacular discoveries in areas such as medicine, geology, nuclear physics, and astrophysics.

It is hard to imagine how Stephen Hawking, who at the age of only 21 was diagnosed with ALS a condition that quickly robbed him of his power of speech and movement could have challenged previous understanding of the structure of the Universe for the better, through his study of black holes and string theory. Stephen defied his own medical prognosis as well as the greatest minds in physics with his ground-breaking work. In the USA in the late 1800s, young Susan LaFlesche vowed to become the first female Native American doctor, at a time when few women in her community worked, let alone dreamed of a career in medicine. Despite her own lifelong illnesses, Susan worked tirelessly to improve the health of her people, as well as fighting for their civil and human rights and was the first person to educate Native Americans on the damage caused by alcohol. In 1963 the race to send women into space was won by the USSR, when it selected young Valentina Tereshkova from her humble background to be the first ever female space pilot. Valentinas childhood and adolescence had been spent helping her poverty-stricken, widowed mother feed and clothe the family, while still determined to realize her dream of becoming a cosmonautparachuting her way into and out of space!

Stephen Hawking

Meanwhile, the American Temple Grandin, who was born severely autistic, has used her unique mind to understand the physical needs and responses of the animals she grew up with in Arizona, not only becoming a hugely successful animal psychologist, but a leading advocate of autism as a gift and not a disability. Though all her life she has found relating to the humans around her very difficult, her special empathy with animals is undoubtedly a result of her autism.

In Poland in the 1800s, Marie Curie overcame depression and financial hardshipand the then-common belief that women should not be educated beyond schoolto discover two vital elements for inclusion in the Periodic Table and make significant breakthroughs in X-ray technologythus saving the lives of many people then and in the future. In wartime Britain, Rosalind Franklin fought the prejudice against women in her field of the early twentieth century to tirelessly experiment with DNA and X-ray crystallography. In doing so, she progressed the study of genetics and medical technology, resulting in quicker and more accurate diagnosis of serious illnessmaking the difference between life and death for many people.

Katherine Johnson

The study of the stars and the religious beliefs surrounding heaven would still be trapped in time had Galileo Galilei not bravely stood by his theories on heliocentrismdefying the Church and suffering imprisonment in the process. And the lives of many blind, budding mathematicians would be very different now without the resourcefulness of American Abraham Nemeth, himself blind from birth, who refused to accept that as a visually impaired person he could not teach mathematics at a high level. Instead he invented his own version of Braille, specifically for the study of calculus and equationsenabling many like him to succeed in their chosen career.

Chien-Shiung Wu

Mary Annings amazing childhood discoveries along the Jurassic Coast provided her impoverished family with an income as well as the scientific community with one of its sharpest paleontological minds, while Marie Tharps determination to reveal the secrets of the ocean floor and Earths crust, despite being a woman in a mans world.

The sixteen formidable scientists in this book faced challenges that undoubtedly made their lives more difficult. For some, their disadvantages were arguably vital to their success, while others were only inspired to work harder to achieve their goals by what was seen to hold them back. What is undeniably true is that without these trailblazers, we would lack much of the knowledge that has advanced our medical treatment and scientific understanding of the world in all its extraordinary glory.

Geerat Vermeij

Albert Einstein was possibly the best-known physicist in the history of humankind. He is one of the most influential scientists of all time, especially for his remarkable work in developing special theories of relativity using his famous mathematical equation: E = mcwhich means energy (E) equals mass (m) times the speed of light, squared (c).

Albert was born on March 14, 1879, in Wrttemberg, Germany. He was the first of two children born to middle-class Jewish parents, Hermann and Pauline Einstein. Alberts father Hermann was a feather-bed salesman, who later ran an electrochemical factory. Alberts only sibling, Mariaknown as Majawas born two years after Albert in 1881.

It has long been thought that Albert had significant learning difficulties in his younger years. His early speech problems, social awkwardness, and the eccentric lectures he later gave to students have led some modern experts to argue that he had Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism. Along with his difficulty communicating, Albert would obsessively fixate on things, and use unconventional methods to solve problems. It is thought that some people with autism can also have a particular talent for understanding complicated concepts, such as mathematics, music, physics, and computer coding. Many believe that Albert also had a condition called dyscalculiaa mathematical learning disorder that enabled him to see numbers and formulas differently.

Albert wrote of two wonders that deeply affected his childhood. The first wonder came when he was 5 years old and saw how a compass worked for the first time. He was fascinated by the invisible forces that affected how the needle swungthis would lead to a lifelong curiosity for investigating invisible forces. The second of Alberts wonders came when he was 12 years old and found a book on geometry that sealed his love of science, and which he called his sacred little geometry book.