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Acclaimed popular science writer Kitty Ferguson investigates little-explored byroads in the history of science, from Johannes Kepler's nearly disastrous venture into the realm of science fiction to a mid-twentieth-century experiment involving EEGs and rocket fuel. She introduces such underappreciated geniuses as Mary the Jewess, the first-century ancestress of modern chemistry; and Lise Meitner, who escaped Nazi Germany only to have her role in the discovery of nuclear fission ignored by the Nobel committee. Ferguson also takes us on astounding adventures with the likes of Jesuit astronomer Ferdinand Verbiest, who invented the first automobile as a clever toy to amuse the Chinese emperor in seventeenth-century Beijing and then saved his own life by winning a bizarre astronomy competition against his former torturer. -- Part I: Ripping yarns. Ferdinand Verbiest, the emperor's new astronomy (1601-1688) ; Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, farm lad, spy, aristocrat, rascal (1753-1814) ; Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche, pursuing Venus (1677-1770) -- Part II: In the shadows. Mary the Jewess, lost in her own legend (c.1st-3rd centuries CE) ; Maria Sibylla Merian, wondrous transformations (1647-1717) ; Alfred Russel Wallace, the other Darwin (1823-1913) ; Lise Meitner, escape to obscurity (1878-1968) -- Part III: Forgotten firsts. Johannes Kepler, near-fatal fiction (c. 1590-1634) ; Milutin Milanković, astronomy on ice (1864-present) ; Barry Stermam, the elusive quality of stillness (late 1950s-present)
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