Overview
- Authors:
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Louis L. Bucciarelli
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
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Nancy Dworsky
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
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Table of contents (10 chapters)
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- Louis L. Bucciarelli, Nancy Dworsky
Pages 1-8
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- Louis L. Bucciarelli, Nancy Dworsky
Pages 9-19
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- Louis L. Bucciarelli, Nancy Dworsky
Pages 20-29
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- Louis L. Bucciarelli, Nancy Dworsky
Pages 30-39
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- Louis L. Bucciarelli, Nancy Dworsky
Pages 40-64
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- Louis L. Bucciarelli, Nancy Dworsky
Pages 65-76
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- Louis L. Bucciarelli, Nancy Dworsky
Pages 77-84
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- Louis L. Bucciarelli, Nancy Dworsky
Pages 85-97
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- Louis L. Bucciarelli, Nancy Dworsky
Pages 98-111
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- Louis L. Bucciarelli, Nancy Dworsky
Pages 112-122
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Back Matter
Pages 123-149
About this book
Why should the story of a woman's role in the development of a scientific theory be written? Is it to celebrate, as some have done, the heroism of a woman's struggle in a man's world? Or is it, rather~to demonstrate that gender is irrelevant to the march of scientific ideas? This book hopes to do neither. Rather, it intends to do justice both to the professional life of a woman in science and to the development of the theory with which she was engaged. Technically, this essay centers on Sophie Germain's analysis of the modes of vibration of elastic surfaces, work which won a competition set by the French Academy of Sciences in 1809. It also evaluates related work on the mathematical theory of elasticity done by men of the Academy. Biographically, it is about a woman who believed in the greatness of science and strove, with some measure of success, to participate in that noble, but wholly male-dominated, enterprise. It explores her failures, analyzes her success, and describes how the members of the Parisian scientific community dealt with her offerings, contributions and demands.
