Robyn Arianrhod

Arianrhod's first book, Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the World through the Language of Mathematics (University of Queensland Press and Oxford University Press, 2005; ISBN 9780702234088, ISBN 978-0-19-530890-7, ISBN 978-0-19-518370-2)^[3] has little to do with Albert Einstein himself.^[4] The titular heroes are James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday, and Isaac Newton, whose portraits Einstein kept. Although the book is broad-ranging in its outline of the development of physics, its central narrative is Maxwell's development of Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism.^[5] A broader goal of the book is to communicate the beauty of mathematics and the way that mathematical language has become central to modern physics.^[6]

Seduced by Logic: Émilie du Châtelet, Mary Somerville and the Newtonian Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2012; ISBN 978-0-19-993161-3) describes and compares the accomplishments and lives of two women of mathematics separated by a century, Émilie du Châtelet in 18th-century France, and Mary Somerville in 19th-century England.^[7] Both women are best known for their popularization of the works of others, Newton's Principia for Du Châtelet and Pierre-Simon Laplace's Traité de mécanique céleste for Somerville,^[8] but they had many other accomplishments, and the book keeps their scientific work in the foreground.^[9]

Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science (Oxford University Press, 2019; ISBN 978-0-19-027185-5) is biography of 16th-century English polymath Thomas Harriot.^[10] It establishes Harriot's contributions to astronomy, optics, physics, cartography, ethnology, and linguistics, which until recently had been little known,^[11] in part because of Harriot's failure to publish his discoveries.^[12]

Her most recent book is Vector: A Surprising Story of Space, Time, and Mathematical Transformation (University of Chicago Press, 2024; ISBN 978-0-226-82110-8, ISBN 978-0-226-82111-5). It won the General History Prize at the 2025 New South Wales Premier's History Awards.^[13]

• "Mathematician Robyn Arianrhod's language of numbers (audio interview)", Conversations, ABC, 28 October 2013
• "Mary Somerville(1780-1872)& Émilie du Châtelet(1706-1749). CWD. R. Arianrhod & A. Reichenberger". YouTube. 5 June 2020.
• "Émilie du Châtelet (1706-1749). Online Teaching. Robyn Arianrhod (2018)". YouTube. 7 September 2020.
• "OBX History Weekend: Robyn Arianrhod - Thomas Harriot, the Astronomer & Mathematician". YouTube. 14 June 2022.
• "Vector w/ Robyn Arianrhod". YouTube. 5 August 2024.