A Sonnet to Science

Back cover'Illingworth offers six beautifully wrought biographies - finding humour, lyricism and humanity in the lives and work of these six scientist-poets.'Alice Roberts, author of The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being and presenter of Digging for Britain, Coast and Time Team'This excellent book is a creative collision of Hadron-like proportion, scattering fragments of intellectual curiosity, fluency and unpretentiousness across every page. One of my "discoveries" of 2019.'Lemn Sissay, MBE'Hard to put down! A fascinating book full of comprehensive biographies showing the development of and influences on the poet scientist, illustrated with generous amounts of poetry!'Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell'A wonderfully eclectic and uplifting collection celebrating how some of the most remarkable stories of scientific endeavour are fuelled by poetic imagining, and revealing how the gaps between well-worn facts are often infused with things poetical. Great stuff!'Iain Stewart, Professor of Geoscience Communication, Director, Sustainable Earth Institute, University of Plymouth and Presenter on BBC ScienceFlap 1 (left)Sam Illingworth is a senior lecturer in Science Communication, where his research involves using poetry to develop dialogue between scientists and non-scientists, especially amongst traditionally under-served and under-represented audiences. Sam is also an award-winning poet who has worked with organisations from the Royal Society and the British Science Association to the Royal Shakespeare Company and Green Man Festival to bring together science and poetry for diverse audiences across the world. You can find out more about Sam and his work by visiting his website: samillingworth.com, or by following him on Twitter @samillingworth.Flap 2 (right)A sonnet to science presents an account of six ground-breaking scientists who also wrote poetry. From Ada Lovelace and James Clerk Maxwell to Miroslav Holub and Rebecca Elson, this book explores the extent to which poetry influenced and inspired their scientific achievements and in doing so considers how science and poetry offer complementary, rather than antagonistic, viewpoints to understanding the world and the way in which we live. Sam Illingworth has identified a selection of poetry, contextualising it within the work and research of its famous author, in an effort to better understand how poetry might be used as an effective tool in both the advancement of science and the way it is communicated today.Written by an expert at the forefront of the intersections between science and poetry, A sonnet to science presents an aspirational account of how these two disciplines can work together, and in doing aims to inspire both current and future generations of scientists and poets that these worlds are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary in nature.

Introduction1 The romantic scientist: Humphry Davy (1778-1829)2 The metaphysical poet: Ada Lovelace (1815-52)3 The lyrical visionary: James Clerk Maxwell (1831-79)4 The medical metrist: Ronald Ross (1857-1932)5 The reluctant poet: Miroslav Holub (1923-98)6 The poetic pioneer: Rebecca Elson (1960-99)EpilogueIndex