Oxford Portraits in Science is a collection of biographies of famous scientists for young adults edited by the Harvard University astronomer Owen Gingerich. Each book portrays the life and personality of an eminent scientist, and the thought processes by which they made their discoveries.
The series is notable as an example of the Sobel effect - an interest in popular accounts of scientific history and biography, stimulated by the success of the book Longitude written by journalist Dava Sobel. Some works in this series have also been written by science journalists as well as scientists and science historians.
Read more about Oxford Portraits In Science: Works
Famous quotes containing the words oxford, portraits and/or science:
“The logical English train a scholar as they train an engineer. Oxford is Greek factory, as Wilton mills weave carpet, and Sheffield grinds steel. They know the use of a tutor, as they know the use of a horse; and they draw the greatest amount of benefit from both. The reading men are kept by hard walking, hard riding, and measured eating and drinking, at the top of their condition, and two days before the examination, do not work but lounge, ride, or run, to be fresh on the college doomsday.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The journalists have constructed for themselves a little wooden chapel, which they also call the Temple of Fame, in which they put up and take down portraits all day long and make such a hammering you can’t hear yourself speak.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“The so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all but mere necromancy. People are unpredictable by nature, and although you can take a nation’s pulse, you can’t be sure that the nation hasn’t just run up a flight of stairs.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)