Women Scientists Volume 3

Description

What does it take to uncover the hidden forces that hold the universe together—and who receives credit when those discoveries change the world? In Women Scientists Vol. 3: Physics, poet J. J. Jonas celebrates two remarkable women whose work transformed our understanding of matter.

Mass Matters  |  by J. J. Jonas

Fabiola Gianotti leads the ATLAS collaboration as CERN closes in on evidence of the Higgs boson. J. J. Jonas blends particle physics with Gianotti’s love of music, presenting the discovery not as a final answer but as a new harmony of questions about what gives matter its presence. With intelligence, humor, and a lifelong love of music, she listens for the quiet harmony beneath the universe—and helps reveal the particle that gives matter its mass.

The Element She Carried  |  by J. J. Jonas

Lise Meitner escapes Nazi Germany, explains nuclear fission with Otto Frisch, refuses work on the atomic bomb, and watches Otto Hahn receive sole Nobel recognition. J. J. Jonas follows history’s delayed correction to Element 109, Meitnerium, which finally carries her name into the periodic table. “The Element She Carried” tells the story of Lise Meitner, whose explanation of nuclear fission reshaped modern physics. Forced to flee Nazi Germany and denied recognition for her work, Meitner carried across every border the one thing that could not be confiscated: her brilliant mind.

Together, these poems honor curiosity, courage, scientific responsibility, and the women who refused to remain invisible in a field determined to overlook them.