Lives of the Scientists: Experiments, Explosions (and What the Neighbors Thought)

By Kathleen Krull and Kathryn Hewitt

Scientists have a reputation for being focused on their work—and maybe even dull. But take another look. Did you know that it’s believed Galileo was scolded by the Roman Inquisition for sassing his mom? That Isaac Newton loved to examine soap bubbles? That Albert Einstein loved to collect joke books, and that geneticist Barbara McClintock wore a Groucho Marx disguise in public? With juicy tidbits about everything from favorite foods to first loves, the subjects of Kathleen Krull and Kathryn Hewitt’s Lives of the Scientists: Experiments, Explosions (and What the Neighbors Thought) are revealed as creative, bold, sometimes eccentric—and anything but dull.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Sep 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781328684011

Kathleen Krull

Kathleen Krull is well known for her innovative, award-winning nonfiction for young people, including Lives of the Explorers, Lives of the Musicians, and all other books in this popular series illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt. She is also the author of Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez, illustrated by Yuyi Morales, as well as The Beatles Were Fab (and They Were Funny) and Lincoln Tells a Joke: How Laughter Saved the President (and the Country), both co-written with Paul Brewer and illustrated by Stacy Innerst. She lives in San Diego, California. Visit her online at kathleenkrull.com. 

Book preview

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I was like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

—ISAAC NEWTON

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Thanks to Jeannette Larson, editor extraordinaire, and to Elizabeth Tardiff, Christine Kettner, and Adah Nuchi for all their brilliant design and editorial work.

—K.H.

Text copyright © 2013 by Kathleen Krull

Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Kathryn Hewitt

All rights reserved. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Harcourt Children’s Books, and imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2013.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [e-mail] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

www.hmhco.com

The illustrations in this book were done in oil paint on Arches paper.

The display type was set in Youngblood Antique.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

LCCN 2012953333

ISBN: 978-0-15-205909-5 hardcover

ISBN: 978-0-544-81087-7 paperback

eISBN 978-1-328-68401-1

v1.0816

For my friends Jean Ferris and Sheila Cole

—K.K.

For Arlo, born with infinite curiosity about the smallest bugs and the biggest stars

—K.H.

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Introduction

Meet twenty dazzling scientists, some of the superstars who moved science forward. Other books explore the details of their discoveries. This book is about their lives. What were these men and women like as human beings—in the laboratory and out of it? How would their neighbors have viewed them?

All were geniuses in one way or another. Many had prickly personalities. Many blew things up or sneaked into the lab to work in the middle of the night. Many had superb writing skills that shaped their careers. And many took wrong turns in their research and in life—even geniuses make mistakes.

But which one personally attended the hangings of criminals he’d sentenced to death (Newton)? Whose house was stoned by scandalized neighbors (Curie)? Whose noisy stomach ailments prevented him from staying over at other people’s houses (Darwin)? Which one chased a student out of his lab (Pavlov), and which one frightened students into slipping out the back door (McClintock)? Who was featured in glamorous Vogue magazine (Watson), and who was jealous (Crick)? Who mastered the art of carrying thirteen dinner plates without dropping them (Goodall), and who was asked to be president of a country (Einstein)? Who was constantly being hunted by his enemies (Ibn Sīnā), and who lived out his last years under house arrest (Galileo)? The lives of famous scientists turn out to hold one surprise after another.

Ever since the days when most people believed the world was flat, many have found science to be taxing on the brain. Science is often about things that are invisible or concepts that seem counterintuitive. But from the earliest Chinese and Islamic science to the years after 1901 (when the fortune left by Swedish dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel began to fund the famous Nobel Prizes) to the present day, science is too amaz­­ing to ignore.

Here are biographies of twenty men and women, warts and all, the real people behind some of the mind-boggling discoveries that continue to shape our world.

—Kathleen Krull

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DRAGONS AND FROGS

Zhang Heng

BORN IN NANYANG, CHINA, 78

DIED IN LUOYANG, CHINA, 139

Astronomer who influenced centuries of Chinese accomplishments in science

The imperial court of the mighty Han dynasty teemed with actors, acrobats, wrestlers, pig breeders—and scholars, like the multitalented Zhang Heng, product of a solid Confucian education. The emperor first summoned Zhang for his genius at math, but it could just as easily have been his skill at poetry (Contemplating the Cosmos), painting (he was considered one of the best painters of his time), or mapmaking.

At age thirty, Zhang started making discoveries in astronomy and was promoted to chief astronomer. His duties included monitoring the earthquakes that shook China. Devastating quakes were believed to be punishment from the gods for poor government. So besides keeping track of the stars, Zhang kept track of the people in power, which made him quite powerful himself. He wore robes of silk, with duck plumes on his fox coats. He dined well on owl spiced with purple ginger and spring garlic, or mandarin duck with bamboo shoots, lotus roots, and mustard greens.

But Zhang also studied earthquakes from a more scientific angle. He invented the world’s first primitive seismometer to indicate where an earthquake was happening. The copper machine had eight dragons around the top, each with a copper ball in its mouth. Below were eight frogs, each representing a direction, like the points of a compass. An earthquake would cause a ball to clatter from a dragon’s mouth into a frog’s mouth.

One day Zhang’s invention showed an earthquake rocking to the northwest. With no tremors felt at court, his enemies were snickering—until a messenger brought news of a quake a few hundred miles northwest of the capital. Zhang’s salary jumped from a modest six hundred bushels of grain to two thousand, converted into money or bolts of silk.

Until he died, at age sixty-one, Zhang invented

Reviews for Lives of the Scientists

[vivirielle-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Scientists have made discoveries that change our world, but they were also real people who irritated their neighbors and had favorite foods. The book details lives of scientists Zhang Heng, Ibn Sina, Galileo, Isaac Netwon, William and Caroline Herschel, Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, Ivan Pavlov, George Washington Carver, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble, Barbara McClintock, Grace Murray Hopper, Rachel Carson, Chien-Shiung Wu, James D. Watson and Francis Crick, and Jane Goodall. In each short biography, it shows an illustration of the scientist, details what contributions that scientist made to the world, and interesting things about them that will interest readers and remind them that scientists are real people too.

This is an excellent resource to introduce children to the accomplishments of several scientists while also showing how human they were. It talks about amusing thing like how Galileo was lectured by the Roman Inquisition for disrespecting his mother and how Albert Einstein collected joke books. It includes several minorities, with 7 biographies being about women and 5 of the scientists were not Caucasian. Some of the scientists are well-known, but Krull also includes ancient scientists that aren’t as famous. The details about their accomplishments and the emphasis on what these men and women were like as people will help children be interested in scientists in ways they might not have been before.

[themulhern · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fun book, passing on some facts and some fables about famous scientists. Lively and entertaining. The illustrations are clever and accomplished. The heads of the scientists are much enlarged, while their diminutive bodies are surrounded by the symbology of their scientific accomplishments and other interests.

[kvelin-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book has short biographies and interesting tid-bits on the lives of influential scientists. This book would be a great way to introduce a topic and get gets thinking. It could also help build background knowledge before diving deeper into a specific subject.

[hadleyadkins · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Lives of Scientists" explores the personal lives of some of the world's greatest scientists. This book not only explains these individuals' contribution to the scientific community, but discusses who they were as people, how they worked (or didn't) with others, their hobbies, and their families. This book gives valuable insight into who these scientists were and shows that all types of people can be scientists. "Lives of Scientists" illustrates the diversity of the scientific community and the sometimes difficult path these people had to travel in order to be taken seriously. This book was entertaining and informative and would be a fun book to have in the classroom.

[supendleton · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a fun book of biographies to read - I read 7 biographies and plan to finish the book this summer. I am not usually drawn to biographies, but the author's sense of humor made me want to keep reading. I can easily see students picking this book up and reading about the lives of these scientists. I like the addition of the "Extra Credit" at the end of each biography which gives interesting and sometimes strange facts. The book reminded me of How They Croaked but this book seemed written for younger students and had fewer illustrations.