Vera Rubin: A Life

Jacqueline Mitton, Simon Mitton

Harvard University Press £23.95 ● HB

Until Vera Rubin, no one was really sure about dark matter. It was a theory, but without her work, few were truly convinced by it. That all changed when Vera Rubin’s work on galaxies showed dark matter was needed to explain what she was observing.

Despite her importance, no other biography exists of Vera Rubin – though curiously, a children’s picture book about her was published in March this year.

Rubin is a fascinating character, not only for her great scientific achievements but for the example she set in how to tackle gender inequality in science. There are some lovely excerpts of letters in the book, showing her using logic and her position to speak up for equality in a way that is both polite and direct.

This book is hugely detailed, both in its use of primary sources and in the explanations of the science involved. However, while the authors clearly respect Rubin’s work and her role as an astronomer, I didn’t always feel I got a sense of how she related to other people. The astronomer Margaret Burbidge, for example, is mentioned as a role model and appears throughout the story, but what their friendship or work relationship was like never comes through. There is so much information packed in the book, it sometimes gets in the way of the human story that is necessary in a biography.

But no matter: this is a great introduction to an important woman and her work. ★★★★★

Emily Winterburn is a science historian and author of The Quiet Revolution of Caroline Herschel