Graphic Science by Darryl Cunningham

Overlooked, sidelined, excluded, discredited: key figures in scientific discovery come and take their bow in an alternative Nobel prize gallery. Antoine Lavoisier: the father of French chemistry who gave oxygen its name, Lavoisier was a wealthy man who found himself on the wrong side of a revolution and paid the price with his life. Mary Anning: a poor, working-class woman who made her living fossil-hunting along the beach cliffs of southern England. Anning found herself excluded from the scientific community because of her gender and social class. Wealthy, male, experts took credit for her discoveries. George Washington Carver: born a slave, Carver become one of the most prominent botanists of his time, as well as a teacher at the Tuskegee Institute. Carver devised over 100 products using one major ingredient – the peanut – including dyes, plastics and gasoline. Alfred Wegener: a German meteorologist, balloonist, and arctic explorer, his theory of continental drift was derided by other scientists and was only accepted into mainstream thinking after his death. He died in Greenland on an expedition, his body lost in the ice and snow. Nikola Tesla: a Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. A competitor of Edison, Tesla died in poverty despite his intellectual brilliance. Jocelyn Bell Burnell: a Northern Irish astrophysicist. As a postgraduate student, she discovered the first radio pulsars (supernova remnants) while studying and advised by her thesis supervisor Antony Hewish, for which Hewish shared the Nobel Prize in physics while Bell Burnell was excluded. Fred Hoyle: an English astronomer noted primarily for the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis – the process whereby most of the elements on the Periodic Table are created. He was also noted for the controversial positions he held on a wide range of scientific issues, often in direct opposition to prevailing theories. This eccentric approach contributed to him to being overlooked by the Nobel Prize committee for his stellar nucleosynthesis work. Any one of these figures could have been awarded a Nobel prize. Not every scientific discoverer was lauded in their time, for reasons of gender, race, or lack of wealth, or (in the case of Lavoisier) being too wealthy: in the 21st century, there are many more reparations and reputations to be made.

Reviews: 'This is not just mind-blowing, complex scientific discovery made accessible, but made absolutely riveting. Daryl Cunningham brings to life the lives and often troubled and tortuous circumstances of those who have made some of the greatest scientific discoveries in history. His graphic narrative style is unparalleled – as with all his books, he breaths fire and soul into the big ideas that dominate human understanding.' Jamie Kelsey-Fry 'Darryl Cunningham’s simplicity of style is deceptive. I never fail to learn from his work, always educational and deeply human too. This is the sort of book you think you have bought for your child, then refuse to give up until you have finished it first. Buy two copies to be on the safe side.' Robin Ince

Paperback: 264 pages Publisher: Myriad Editions (Graphic Novels) (20 Oct. 2017) Language: English ISBN-10: 0993563325 ISBN-13: 978-0993563324 Product Dimensions: 16 x 2.2 x 23 cm