Robyn Arianrhod
Robyn Arianrhod (born circa 1951)[1] is an Australian historian of science known for her works on the predecessors to Albert Einstein, on Émilie du Châtelet and Mary Somerville, and on Thomas Harriot.
Education
In the 1970s, Arianrhod left her honours program in mathematics to join a radical counterculture community, without electricity, running water, or communications.[2] She returned to school, earned a bachelor's degree from Monash University in 1993, and a doctorate from Monash University in 2003. She remains affiliated with Monash University as an honorary research associate in the mathematical sciences.[1]
Books
Arianrhod's first book, Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the World through the Language of Mathematics (University of Queensland Press and Oxford University Press, 2005)[3] has little to do with Albert Einstein himself.[4] The titular heroes are James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday, and Isaac Newton, and (although the book is broad-ranging in its outline of the development of physics) the central narrative is Maxwell's development of Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism. Einstein kept a portrait of Maxwell in his laboratory, and Maxwell in turn was inspired by Faraday and Newton.[5] A broader goal of the book is to communicate the beauty of mathematics and the way that mathematical language has become central to modern physics.[6]
Seduced by Logic: Émilie du Châtelet, Mary Somerville and the Newtonian Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2012) describes and compares the accomplishments and lives of two women of mathematics separated by a century, Émilie du Châtelet in 18th-century France, and Mary Somerville in 19th-century England.[7] Both women are best known for their popularization of the works of others, Newton's Principia Mathematica for Du Châtelet and Pierre-Simon Laplace's Traité de mécanique céleste for Somerville,[8] but they had many other accomplishments, and the book keeps their scientific work in the foreground.[9] Her treatment of Somerville has been criticized for ignoring Kathryn Neeley's earlier work on Somerville,[8] and Grabiner (2013) also criticizes the book for its anachronistic treatment of lines of research that have been superseded by modern physics and its imprecise referencing to its source material.
Her newest book is Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science (Oxford University Press, 2019).[10] A biography of 16th-century English polymath Thomas Harriot, it also establishes Harriot's contributions to astronomy, optics, physics, cartography, ethnology, and linguistics, which until recently had been little known,[11] in part because of Harriot's failure to publish his discoveries.[12]
References
- "Arianrhod, Robym 1951(?)–", Encyclopedia.com, Cengage, retrieved 2019-11-05
- Luntz, Stephen (January–February 2012), "A career begins by candlelight", Australasian Science, 33 (1): 39
- Reviews of Einstein's Heroes:
- Gleeson-White, Jane (10 November 2003), "Review", The Sydney Morning Herald
- Griffin, Michelle (13 December 2003), "Outside the equation", The Age
- Vale, Colleen (2004), "Review", The Australian Mathematics Teacher, 60 (3): 6–7
- Roberts, Craig W. (2005), Mathematical Reviews, MR 2036926
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Weigel, Jack W. (15 May 2005), Library Journal, p. 139
- Olson, Ray (1 June 2005), "Imagining the World through the Language of Mathematics", Booklist: 1729
- Science News, 23 July 2005, p. 63
- Farmelo, Graham (October 2005), "A name in vain?", Nature Physics, 1 (1): 7, Bibcode:2005NatPh...1....7F, doi:10.1038/nphys123, S2CID 119773877
- Goldhaber, Alfred Scharff (March–April 2006), "Math as a Language in Its Own Right", American Scientist, 94 (2): 185–186, doi:10.1511/2006.58.185, JSTOR 27858752
- Barat, Christopher E. (14 September 2006), "Review", MAA Reviews
- Farmelo (2005).
- Barat (2006).
- Griffin (2003); Goldhaber (2006)
- Reviews of Seduced by Logic:
- Gray, Jeremy, Mathematical Reviews, MR 3013691
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Heyward, William (1 June 2011), "Review", Readings
- Allsopp, Kimberley (May 2011), "review", Bookseller + Publisher Magazine, 90 (8): 43
- Dudley, Underwood (1 November 2012), "Review", MAA Reviews
- Snyder, Laura J. (13 November 2012), "A Laboratory Of Her Own: Châtelet and Somerville struggled against the perception that it was dangerous for women to study science", The Wall Street Journal
- "Review", Science News, 29 November 2012
- Macleod, N. G. (May 2013), Mathematics in School, 42 (3): 35, JSTOR 24767562
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Grabiner, Judith V. (June–July 2013), "Book Review" (PDF), Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 60 (6): 744–747
- Grosholz, Emily (Winter 2013), "Candles in the Dark: Émilie du Châtelet and Mary Somerville", The Hudson Review, 65 (4): 669–676, JSTOR 43489293
- Hutton, Sarah (April 2014), Centaurus, 56 (3): 189–190, doi:10.1111/1600-0498.12042
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Toller, Owen (July 2014), The Mathematical Gazette, 98 (542): 375, doi:10.1017/s0025557200001595, S2CID 233360232
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Lamprecht, Elizabeth (January 2016), "The allure of mathematics", Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, 6 (1): 277–284, doi:10.5642/jhummath.201601.18
- Opitz, Donald L. (May 2016), BSHM Bulletin: Journal of the British Society for the History of Mathematics, 31 (2): 156–158, doi:10.1080/17498430.2016.1170358, S2CID 124591925
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
- Gray, Jeremy, Mathematical Reviews, MR 3013691
- Gray.
- Grabiner (2013).
- Reviews of Thomas Harriot:
- "Review", Kirkus Reviews
- "Review", Publishers Weekly
- Thompson, Bill (31 March 2019), "Review: Mathematician Thomas Harriot's reputation resurrected in new biography", The Post and Courier
- Ferry, Georgina (April 2019), "Moon mapper, Sun spotter: the astonishing Thomas Harriot", Nature, 568 (7752): 311–312, Bibcode:2019Natur.568..311F, doi:10.1038/d41586-019-01174-x
- Hirshfeld, Alan (21 June 2019), "Review: A Genius in Eclipse", The Wall Street Journal
- Mazur, Joseph (July 2019), "Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science by Robyn Arianrhod", The Mathematical Intelligencer, 41 (4): 62–65, doi:10.1007/s00283-019-09904-9, S2CID 199121410
- Hawkes, David (13 August 2019), "Master conjuror: Renewing the reputation of an eminent thinker", The Times Literary Supplement
- Bultheel, Adhemar (14 October 2019), "Review", EMS Reviews
- Finkel, Elizabeth (November 2019), "Review", Australian Book Review
- Thompson (2019); Mazur (2019)
- Ferry (2019); Mazur (2019)
External links
- "Mathematician Robyn Arianrhod's language of numbers (audio interview)", Conversations, ABC, 28 October 2013