Hashime Murayama and the Art of Saving Lives | Science History Institute
“There’s an old adage that says life is short, art long. And in certain circles Murayama’s wildlife art remains celebrated to this day. But even though he took Papanicolaou’s assignment under duress, Murayama’s work on cervical cancer had the more lasting legacy—art that helped make millions of women’s lives longer.”
Image via Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons Attribution International License 4.0
Life Stories | Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794-1871)
“Having for several years devoted to the natural sciences the hours that remained to me free from my domestic affairs, while I was classifying some marine objects for my study, the octopus of the Argonauta transfixed my attention above the rest, because naturalists have been of such various opinions about this mollusk.”
Jeanne Villepreux-Power
Early Life | Thomas Alva Edison ( 1847-1931)
“To increase the sale of his papers, he telegraphed the headings of the war news to the stations in advance of the trains and placarded them to tempt the passengers. Ere long he conceived the plan of publishing a newspaper of his own. Having bought a quantity of old type at the office of the Detroit Free Press he installed it in a springless car, or ‘caboose' of the train meant for a smoking-room, but too uninviting to be much used by the passengers. Here he set the type and printed a small sheet about a foot square by pressing it with his hand.”
Early Life | Fleeming Jenkins (1833 -1885)
“Jenkin was fortunate in having an excellent education. His mother took him to the south of Scotland, where, chiefly at Barjarg, she taught him drawing among other things, and allowed him to ride his pony on the moors. He went to school at Jedburgh, and afterwards to the Edinburgh Academy, where he carried off many prizes. Among his schoolfellows were Clerk Maxwell and Peter Guthrie Tait, the friends of his mature life.”
Early Life | Charles William Siemens (1823-1883)
“As a child William was sensitive and affectionate, the baby of the family, liking to roam the woods and fields by himself, and curious to observe, but not otherwise giving any signs of the engineer. He received his education at a commercial academy in Liibeck, the Industrial School at Magdeburg (city of the memorable burgomaster, Otto yon Guericke), and at the University of Gottingen, which he entered in 1841, while in his eighteenth year.”
Early Life | William Thomson (1824-1907)
“The study of mathematics, physics, and in particular, of electricity, had captivated his imagination, and soon engrossed all the teeming faculties of his mind. At the age of seventeen, when ordinary lads are fond of games, and the cleverer sort are content to learn without attempting to originate, young Thomson had begun to make investigations.”
Early Life | Samuel Morse (1791-1872)
“At the age of four Samuel was sent to an infant school kept by an old lady, who being lame, was unable to leave her chair, but carried her authority to the remotest parts of her dominion by the help of a long rattan. Samuel, like the rest, had felt the sudden apparition of this monitor. Having scratched a portrait of the dame upon a chest of drawers with the point of a pin, he was called out and summarily punished.”
Early Life | Charles Wheatstone ( 1802-1875)
“One day, to the surprise of the bookseller, he coveted a volume on the discoveries of Volta in electricity, but not having the price, he saved his pennies and secured the volume. It was written in French, and so he was obliged to save again, till he could buy a dictionary. Then he began to read the volume, and, with the help of his elder brother, William, to repeat the experiments described in it.”
An astronomer's wife | The biography of Angeline Hall by her son
“Every time I go away from home, among strangers, I feel my need of you. My friends here, even my sisters, seem cold and distant when compared with you. O there is no one like the dear one who nestles in our hearts and loves us always.”
On parental support | Leonhard Euler (1707-1783)
The excerpt comes from an Introduction to the Elements of Algebra written by Euler (1707 -1783) when he already blind. The book of unsurpassable clarity it can be used as an introduction to algebra nowadays just as it was more than two centuries ago. For an extended read exploring the book I would direct you to “A tale of two curricula: Euler's algebra text book” by Chris Sangwin
Early Life | Childhood memories | Alfred Russel Wallace
“What makes this deficiency the more curious is that, during the very same period at which I cannot recall the personal appearance of the individuals with whom my life was most closely associated, I can recall all the main features and many of the details of my outdoor, and, to a less degree, of my in- door, surroundings.”
Darwin's Battle with Anxiety | The Marginalian
“For 25 years extreme spasmodic daily & nightly flatulence: occasional vomiting, on two occasions prolonged during months. Vomiting preceded by shivering, hysterical crying[,] dying sensations or half-faint. & copious very palid urine,”
Sir Humphry Davy Used Poetry and Theatre to Bring Science to Life | The Conversation
“Poetry was for him a way to express emotions, thoughts and feelings which had no place in his scientific writings. That said, the books he published could describe chemical experiments in a distinctly poetic language. Coleridge said that he went to Davy’s lectures to increase the number of metaphors that he could use in his poems. “
Early Life | George Stephenson (1781-1848)
“George Stephenson was eighteen years old before he learnt to read. He was now almost a full-grown workman, earning his twelve shillings a week, and having the charge of an engine, which occupied his time to the extent of twelve hours every day. He had thus very few leisure moments that he could call his own.”
Early Life | Ignaz Semmelweis (1818 -1865) | Book Excerpt
“Defective conventional school education had left his vision clear to see only what was to be seen, and his intellectual faculties free — so that he could think for himself and form independent judgments and logical inductions from the facts of experience.”
Meet the Women Illustrators of the Pomological Watercolor Collection | Lady Science
“Edward Lee Greene, a botanist known for “Landmarks of Botanical History,” said at the time: “Never in any book did I see a plate that looked as if the original equaled these; I did not know that they could be painted with such perfection.”
Early Life | Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
“For this purpose, he provided himself with little saws, hatchets, hammers, and all sorts of tools, which he acquired the art of using with singular dexterity. The principal pieces of mechanism which he thus constructed were a windmill, a waterclock, and a carriage put in motion by the person who sat in it.”
"Everything but the Stench" | Lapham's Quarterly
“And they do not break. She does not reveal what material they are made of, although it seems as if they were made of wax mixed with something. All parts are correctly named in Latin and Greek. She has studied this art for more than 20 years.”
Early Life | Alice Hamilton (1869-1970)
“Of science we had not even a smattering, beyond what we could gather from my father's favorite Max Muller. Yet in a way we were trained in habits of scientific approach. We were not allowed to make a statement which could be challenged unless we were prepared to defend it. One of my father's favorite quotations was, "Be ready always to give a reason of the hope that is in you."
Giving Overdue Credit to Early Archaeologists' Wives | JSTOR Daily
“In his 1933 Archaeology of Palestine, famed American archaeologist W. F. Albright mused, “where expeditions are mixed it is highly desirable to have the Director’s wife present, both to provide a feminine social arbiter and to avert scandal.”