Angles of Reflection: Logic and a Mother's Love - Hardcover

Richards, Joan L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0716738317 ISBN 13: 9780716738312

Publisher: W H Freeman & Co, 2000

Synopsis

In this narrative, Richards (history of mathematics, Brown, U.) interweaves her experiences with her son, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor at age nine, and her concurrent intellectual involvement with the life and work of the 19th-century mathematician Augustus De Morgan. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

About this title

About the Author

Joan Richards is an Associate Professor of the History of Mathematics at Brown University. In addition to articles and reviews for scholarly publications, she is the author of Mathematical Visions: The Pursuit of Geometry in Victorian England.

From the Back Cover

"Joan Richards, one of our leading historians of science, has written a tale of three cities and two time frames. Angles of Reflection gives a contrapuntal account of her experience as the mother of an injured son and her professional perceptions as a biographer of Augustus De Morgan. I found it unique in its display of courage and resolution and in its blend of the personal and the historical."
--Philip J. Davis, co-author of The Mathematical Experience

"A gripping story, at once an intensely personal account by a mother of her child's illnesses and a reexamination of the history of probability theory by an accomplished historian of mathematics. Joan Richards writes with intelligence and sensitivity, and--a rare accomplishment--she uses her experiences of family and work to brilliantly illuminate one another. This is a highly original book, beautifully and passionately written. It is both edifying and pleasurable to read."
--Joan Wallach Scott, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

"I found Joan Richards' Angles of Reflection to be a brave and moving book. Brave because she dares to breach the wall between her profession and her love for her endangered child. I read eagerly, wanting to know if mother and child would triumph over the rigidities of both medicine and academia. Her courage in breaching the wall between the personal and the professional leads to a new understanding of both, first in her life and then in ours."
-- Susan Quinn, author of Marie Curie: A Life and A Mind of Her Own: The Life of Karen Horney

Reviews

Richards, a professor of the history of science at Brown, was looking forward to a long-anticipated sabbatical when her nine-year-old son developed a seizure disorder. Putting aside her own work, upon which her chance for a promotion rested, Richards saw Ned through successful brain surgery before resuming plans to bring her family to Berlin, where she had been granted a prestigious fellowship. Another medical emergency soon arose, however, and Richards spent the entire stay in Germany worried about Ned's increasingly complex prognosis and negotiating the labyrinthine medical system. These frustrations led her to question the validity of the Victorian models of thinking that were to have been the core of her research project. "My understanding was coming apart at the seams," she writes in this gripping memoir. "My experience was making me a traitor to [the] world where the public and private were sharply defined and not to be mixed. I had lost [Victorian scientists'] clear understanding of the real and the unreal." When Ned finally recovered, Richards produced not the expected scholarly study on 19th century probabilistic thought but this personal account of how her private experience deepened her understanding of her academic specialty. A gifted writer, Richards is at her best in describing her fears for her son and the conflicting demands of career and motherhood. Although it's surprising that she never really challenges the power structure that expects her to produce work at any cost, her memoir is an exceptionally articulate study of how we deal with what we cannot control. Agent, Sally Brady. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Mathematician and science historian Richards brings spirituality to mathematics and physics as she ponders the demands of motherhood and a career in a male-dominated field. She opens with a harrowing account of dealing with her nine-year-old son Ned's seizures and subsequent brain surgery shortly before she and both her sons moved to Germany, where she had a one-year fellowship. Her husband remained in the U.S., making theirs a long-distance marriage that was further strained by another medical catastrophe when Ned broke an elbow--a potentially crippling injury. She spent a frustrating year grappling with the German language and medical system. Besides reporting her harried year, she ponders the life and career of the Victorian mathematician Augustus DeMorgan as recounted in a memoir by his wife, Sophia. DeMorgan endured the death of his 16-year-old daughter, an experience that changed him and in which Richards sees sharp differences in the standards by which men and women are judged. A compelling story of balancing career and parenthood. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: W H Freeman & Co
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0716738317
• ISBN 13: 9780716738312
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 282