Angles of Reflection: A Memoir of Logic and a Mother's Love

by Joan L. Richards

At the time her nine year old son was diagnosed with a brain tumour, Joan Richards was deeply involved in writing a book about the life and work of the 19th-century mathematician Augustus De Morgan. Immersed in this abstract, logical world of science, Richards was forced by her son's sudden illness to confront a different kind of reality, the irrational world of a serious family illness and its consequences. A memoir, "Angles of Reflection" portrays a woman deeply enmeshed in two male dominated worlds, 19th-century mathematics and 20th-century research academics struggling to integrate the competing demands of family and career without sacrificing one to the other. As the strain of caring for her sick child mounts, Richards' view of De Morgan broadens to include his family in ways that both illuminate his work and force her to re-evaluate her own career and relationships. In the process, she gives new meaning to the term "applied mathematics" by drawing life lessons from De Morgan's logic, Newton's absolute space and time, and Leibnitz's relative visions of reality.

Genres: Health, Biography, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2000

Reviews

[Kit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intelligent and moving story of a busy mother's experiences when her son suffers two major health problems in the course of one year. The mother/author is a professor of history of science--her son's injuries and the random helpfulness/lack of helpfulness of the health care system force her to confront her ideas of science, logic and career-driven reality. As a pediatric nurse and a mother myself, I felt her fears and frustrations very clearly.