Emanating from these lives are larger questions about the measure of a good life and what it means to leave a lasting mark of betterment on an imperfect world: Are achievement and acclaim enough for happiness? Is genius? Is love? Weaving through the narrative is a set of peripheral figures-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Walt Whitman-and a tapestry of themes spanning music, feminism, the history of science, the rise and decline of religion, and how the intersection of astronomy, poetry, and Transcendentalist philosophy fomented the environmental movement. few have so fulsomely explored how science and poetry, love and learning, and affairs of the heart intertwine in a way that, even after more than 500 pages. A highly original survey of life, love and creativity an intellectual odyssey that challenges easy categorisation. Among them are the astronomer Maria Mitchell, who paved the way for women in science the sculptor Harriet Hosmer, who did the same in art the journalist and literary critic Margaret Fuller, who sparked the feminist movement and the poet Emily Dickinson. Figuring (2019) Brings a taste of Popova’s Brain Pickings site offline for those who question what defines life for each of us. Stretching between these figures is a cast of artists, writers, and scientists-mostly women, mostly queer-whose public contribution have risen out of their. Stretching between these figures is a cast of artists, writers, and scientists-mostly women, mostly queer-whose public contribution have risen out of their unclassifiable and often heartbreaking private relationships to change the way we understand, experience, and appreciate the universe. Popova stands on the side of a truth that cannot be found in conventional linear narratives. Figuring explores the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries-beginning with the astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, and ending with the marine biologist and author Rachel Carson, who catalyzed the environmental movement.

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