The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “history”

Good Sense vs. Free Hope: Margaret Fuller on Reaping Wonder from Everyday Reality
Good Sense vs. Free Hope: Margaret Fuller on Reaping Wonder from Everyday Reality

“The mind is not … a highway, but a temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left open.”

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Stitching a Supernova: A Needlepoint Celebration of Science by Pioneering Astronomer Cecilia Payne
Stitching a Supernova: A Needlepoint Celebration of Science by Pioneering Astronomer Cecilia Payne

“These moments are rare, and they come without warning… They are the ineffable reward of him who scans the face of Nature.”

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The Measure of All Things: How Two French Astronomers Nearly Lost Their Lives Revolutionizing the World with the Invention of the Meter
The Measure of All Things: How Two French Astronomers Nearly Lost Their Lives Revolutionizing the World with the Invention of the Meter

“The fundamental fallacy of utopianism is to assume that everyone wants to live in the same utopia.”

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The Invention of Zero: How Ancient Mesopotamia Created the Mathematical Concept of Nought and Ancient India Gave It Symbolic Form
The Invention of Zero: How Ancient Mesopotamia Created the Mathematical Concept of Nought and Ancient India Gave It Symbolic Form

“If you look at zero you see nothing; but look through it and you will see the world.”

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Meet Mary Somerville: The Brilliant Woman for Whom the Word “Scientist” Was Coined
Meet Mary Somerville: The Brilliant Woman for Whom the Word “Scientist” Was Coined

How a Scottish polymath forever changed the course of gender in science and made a high art of connecting the seemingly disconnected.

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The Venus Hottentot: Elizabeth Alexander Reads Her Stirring Poem About the Roots of Racism and the Misuses of Science
The Venus Hottentot: Elizabeth Alexander Reads Her Stirring Poem About the Roots of Racism and the Misuses of Science

“Elegant facts await me.”

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Stunning Drawings of Seaweed from a Book by Self-Taught Victorian Marine Biologist Margaret Gatty
Stunning Drawings of Seaweed from a Book by Self-Taught Victorian Marine Biologist Margaret Gatty

The tenderness of feathers meets the grandeur of trees in the otherworldly life-forms of the seas, which offered an unexpected entry point for women in science.

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Six Dots: The Remarkable Life and Legacy of Child Inventor Louis Braille, Illustrated
Six Dots: The Remarkable Life and Legacy of Child Inventor Louis Braille, Illustrated

How a tenacious boy created one of the most life-changing inventions in human history.

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Wonder-Sighting in the Medieval World: Stunning Sixteenth-Century Drawings of Comets, with Carl Sagan’s Poetic Meditation on Their Science
Wonder-Sighting in the Medieval World: Stunning Sixteenth-Century Drawings of Comets, with Carl Sagan’s Poetic Meditation on Their Science

“A comet is … a great clock, ticking out decades or geological ages once each perihelion passage, reminding us of the beauty and harmony of the Newtonian universe, and of the daunting insignificance of our place in space and time.”

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The Glass Universe: How Harvard’s Unsung Women Astronomers Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Cosmos Decades Before Women Could Vote
The Glass Universe: How Harvard’s Unsung Women Astronomers Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Cosmos Decades Before Women Could Vote

The untold story of the trailblazing women scientists and patrons who catalogued the stars and helped prove that the universe is expanding.

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