Since 1901 there have been over three hundred recipients of the Nobel Prize in the sciences. Only ten of them -- about 3 percent -- have been women. Why? In this updated version of Nobel Prize Women in Science, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne explores the reasons for this astonishing disparity by examining the lives and achievements of fifteen women scientists who either won a Nobel Prize or played a crucial role in a Nobel Prize - winning project. The book reveals the relentless discrimination these...

A vivid account of the generations-long dispute over one of the greatest breakthroughs in the history of applied mathematics and statistics Bayes' rule appears to be a straightforward, one-line theorem: by updating our initial beliefs with objective new information, we get a new and improved belief. To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok.\nIn the first-ever account of Bayes' rule for general...

"…excellent job of describing the chemical processes and their legacies-both beneficial and unintended. She never lets any of her characters be good or bad, just human. This humanity makes her stories gripping. I highly recommend this thoughtful and thought-provoking book. McGrayne successfully describes the ambiguous effects of chemical technology and the role that human strengths and frailties play on mitigating or exacerbating those effects."—Chemical & Engineering News "…a...