Six lives in a compelling narration Six extraordinary women Six short novels you’ll be happy to get lost in
Marie Curie (1867-1934), Lise Meitner (1878-1968), Emmy Noether (1882-1935), Rosalind
Franklin (1920-1958), Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000), Mileva Marić (1875-1948). These are the magnificent six. Except for Marie Curie their names are essentially unknown to the general reading public. They are just ordinary women names. These women were all born within a lapse of fifty years and they worked through the most crucial and roaring years of the twentieth century, years of atrocious wars (which they experienced first-hand), and of great advancement in sciences. These women advanced sciences. There’s a Polish chemist who could not attend university, the Jewish physicist whom the Nazis hated, the German mathematician whom nobody loved, the English crystallographer whose discoveries were snatched, the Hollywood star who became a military engineer and the Serbian theorist overshadowed by her husband. So what about Hedy Lamarr? Wasn’t she an actress?
Yes, she was an actress. The Hollywood diva, the first full nudity in the history of cinema (1929), defined by all sides the most beautiful woman in the world before Marilyn Monroe. But she was also an engineer, and a talented one. She invented modern wireless communication, the very one we use with our phones. Of course, the six heroines presented by Gabriella Greison are not the only six women in sciences, but, with their will, their skills, their talent and hard work, they paved the way for fellow women scientists to come in an all-men world. They gave us their discoveries. But they also made us aware of the fact that women could, in fact had to, be allowed to choose science as their career. Their centuries-long banishment has already come at a very high price for humankind. Six terrific stories, with a touch of fairytale. They are not always cheerful stories, they do not always have a happy ending, because they are real stories, of achievements and failures. We laugh and cry, as should be. Still, thanks to these six icons of twentieth-century science and to their example it was less hard for other women to find their way and to give us the fruits of their knowledge and imagination.To name but some of them: Amalia Ercoli Finzi, Fabiola Gianotti, Barrè Sinoussi, Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider, Barbara McClintock, Wu Chieng-Shiung, Vera Rubin, Jocelyn Bell, Lisa Randall, Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier…These names might not ring a bell to the general reading public, but for the first time these women were the principal investigators of huge research teams, carrying out cutting-edge research. More and more women are following in their wake: they love sciences, they graduate in sciences, they take a Ph.D. in sciences and they’ll be free to give us the fruits of their brilliant minds.
For all this we have to thank our six magnificent women: Marie, Lise, Emmy, Rosalind, Hedy e Mileva.