Product Description
At the age of 68, distinguished Princeton science professor Max Weiss is bribed into taking an early retirement. He takes an ingenious revenge in the form of "Doctor Diana Skordylis"--a pseudonym for a partnership among Weiss and three aging colleagues. Their soaring success is unanticipated and professional jealousy soon threatens Diana Skordylis's life. "A beautifully ingenious, funny, brilliantly inteligent and moving tale of very human scientists. A splendid novel."--Iris Murdoch.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 2 reviews)

Issues in science and mathathics: age, gender and originality

The collective Individual of the French mathematical community Nicolas Bourbaki is the inspiration for four people in biochemistry: they form the collective individual Diana Skordylis and publish research papers under that name. What breaks up the association is not failure, but success.
The book is slow and almost too literary, but the character development is better than many faster or more interesting novels.
Had they developed a biotoxin or a weapon of some kind, it might have
had spies and intrigue that would
have gained the book a wider audience.
Instead it became a polemic against sex and age discrimination in the
scientific and educational community.
The fact that one gets paid more for getting more published under an individual name and that individuals can't get published without some recognized sponsorship makes the system system somewhat secure
from raging originality and not all an open form. It is not at all clear why older successful people would be threatened by being retired
so that younger people can get at least a chance
should be much of an issue:
a more important issue is the voices who are never heard or even allowed to speak or publish their work or ideas.

August 02, 2008

Djerassi did not win a nobel prize.

This excellent book explored the collaborative process of science in the framework of an interesting story. It is a must read for scientists who should learn lessons from this book. It should be noted however that the author is not a nobel prize winner as the first review would have us believe.
September 04, 1999

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