Good morning,

How are you doing? I don't have a big theme for this week except that the world is beautiful and here are some links about women who have encountered the beauty of the world in a really significant way.

Let's start with Joan Feynman. I love this story of two siblings who would definitively change physics just dividing their subject up, like this is my side of the car and this is your side of the car and let's agree to stay on our own sides of the car. And they did! Joan made Richard stick to the bargain! And she discovered the science behind the aurora boarealis and aurora australis. Amazing woman:

[A]round 1963, she at Columbia, he at Caltech, Joan Feynman and her brother Richard divvied up the universe. She took auroras, the Northern and Southern Lights that shimmer through the night sky in the highest latitudes. He, nine years older and fast becoming a world star in physics, took all the rest, which was fine with her. The arrangement was serious. When, many years later, Richard was asked to look into auroras, he said he would have to ask Joan’s permission. She said no.

https://www.economist.com/obituary/2020/09/19/joan-feynman-died-on-july-22nd

Now, how about Robyn Davidson, who walked 1,700 miles across the interior of Australia. Her book, Tracks, is an incredible story of a flawed person figuring things out for herself, and it's also a love story where she just falls properly in love with her beautiful country. I recommend it to you all. They made a film too, which is covered in this interview, but really you just get the love, thirty years on and still utterly real:

I don’t think I ever became blasé about the landscape. The landscape in the film is beautiful but, frankly, nothing compared to what I saw. It’s an achingly beautiful landscape and incredibly varied.

http://www.indielondon.co.uk/Film-Review/tracks-robyn-davidson-interview

Have a lovely day,

A xx.