Schrödingers Wife (and other possibilities)

Media coverage of scientific results emphasises future benefits and awe-inspiring technological feats, but we don’t hear enough about the people behind these results, nor about the culture in which they work, and in particular the role of women is often forgotten. These stories travel through laboratories, observatories, rockets, hotel rooms, hospitals, to the Antarctic and into outer space, following the trails of women scientists, technicians, patients, doctors, and spouses in their encounters with some of the most extraordinary aspects of modern science.

Many of these stories feature real-life people: the nuclear physicist Lise Meitner discovers the secrets of nuclear fission while fleeing from the Nazis. The biologist Margaret Bastock figures out the impact of genes on behavior while coping with post-war expectations of women's own behavior. Scientists from East and West Germany stationed at opposite sides of Antarctica experience their own fall of the Berlin Wall. The elusive physicist Bruno Pontecorvo theorizes about an equally elusive particle. And Schrödinger’s wife Anny uses his theory to get her revenge on her philandering husband.

MIT Press are the distributors outside of the UK.

Praise for Schrödingers Wife...

In her laboratory of words, Pippa Goldschmidt mixes science with stories to create fictions inspired by people and creatures both real and imagined. From the Mars rover to lab mice and the fickle nature of love – and with a particular interest in often-brilliant women pushed to the margins and denied a voice – Goldschmidt invites us to expand our minds from what we thought was possible in order to see our world in new ways.

Tania Hershman, author of Still Life With Octopus and Go On

The ambiguous nature of light and matter is the epicenter of Pippa Goldschmidt’s delightfully quirky new collection. Zigzagging across a century of history, from the first world war to the devastated Anthropocene Earth, these stories subvert the glamorous masculine mythos and hubris of twentieth century physics and twenty-first century Mars exploration. Playfully innovative in structure and voice, they are also a lot of fun to read.

Susan M. Gaines, author of Accidentals and Carbon Dreams

Published by Goldsmiths Press and available from most book retailers

ISBN: 9781915983183