RamsdenDesigns

All A-Glow

On pure impulse the girls and I stopped at a bookshop on Thursday night. One Dr Who sonic screwdriver and three books later we retired for home to look over our booty.

One of the books I bought was “First & Only Women. History’s female trailblazers” about remarkable women in history.

The first woman I read about was Marie Curie, who discovered radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel prize, the only woman to win two Nobel prizes (in Physics and Chemistry) and the only person to win in two different fields. Albert Einstein considered her an inspiration and she was treated like a celebrity in France.

Marie was not only brilliant but passionate as well. She and Pierre Curie had a loving and committed marriage. Pierre, determined to never marry changed his mind as soon as he met Marie, proposing after only six months. She was unsure and fled France to Poland but Pierre was relentless, bombarding her with love letters, declaring “It would be a beautiful thing which I dare not hope for if we could pass our lives close to each other”.

They quietly married and had two children, working together everyday under the beautiful but deadly blue glow of radium until Pierre’s untimely death nine years later in a road accident.

She was a remarkable woman, refusing a government pension, declaring she could earn her own way in life. And despite the dangers of her work she saw the potential of x-ray as a tool to help doctors, setting up hundreds of x-ray machines in hospitals and ambulances, training nurses and doctors in x-ray technology and sometimes driving the ambulances herself to the frontline during World War I. Her compassion and brilliance saved the lives of untold soldiers.

There’s Marie Curie sitting two seats away from Albert Einstein in 1927.

Utterly compelling isn’t it? I’m besotted by science and Big B and I own countless books on the subject. Did you also notice something else about the photos? Slipped into the second photo is a glimpse of my engagement ring. Big B surprised me with a ring and proposal earlier this month and on Thursday I finally got the ring resized to wear.

I can’t promise not to bore you to tears with wedding related posts. In fact I promise I WILL bore you with wedding related posts.

Starting tomorrow.

Currently Reading…

“Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You. A guide to the universe” by Marcus Chown.

It’s a book that puts quantum theory and Einstein’s theory of relativity into easy, readable language. What I’d most like to write is that I find it interesting and informative, able now to discuss quantum theory as easily as I can the latest episode of House.

Shamefully I have to admit I’m only getting about 50% of the content. I have no idea what ‘interference’ is with regards to the atom or how a quantum computer could work or why light is made up of waves and particles. Please don’t ask me any of these questions, I can’t answer them.

This is not the first science book I’ve read. I very much enjoyed “The Universe in a Nutshell” by Stephen Hawking and “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson was a hoot. Hawking even dedicated a chapter to ‘String Theory’ and I’m pretty sure I got that.

It’s because quantum theory is beyond comprehension and most of the time sounds like scientists are just grabbing answers out of thin air. For example…an experiment produces identical events and they are indistinguishable “just as long as nobody looks”.

Thankfully I’m not the only one who feels the same way. Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann was on a sea voyage with Einstein in 1921 and said: “Einstein explained his theory to me every day and, on my arrival, I was fully convinced that he understood it!”

Young Einstein

Proof that my kids are gifted. She may have a grubby face but Little C loves nothing better than an afternoon cuddle with her mum in bed and a bit of light reading.

And by light reading I mean my favourite book of all time: Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. She certainly has a broad range of interests.

Look how worn the book is, I don’t know how many times I’ve read it but I never get tired of it. If only my memory was better than a goldfishes…I’d be one of the smartest people on the planet.

I won’t mention that after reading for a bit she then proceeded to whack the cat with the book (but I have that bit on video).