The book is also enjoyable for showing her own fannish reactions--from what I remember, she became a physician partly because she wanted to solve this mystery!
Wow! I can see why, it seems fascinating.
Compared to capable polar explorers like Amundsen and Nansen
Unfortunately, none of this sounds much worse than Amundsen discovering he needs a plane to take him over the North Pole NOW, before anyone else beats him there. All his attention to detail goes out the window and he's like, "Plane experts? We don't need no stinkin' plane experts!" The whole expedition was so mismanaged it's a miracle he survived it, and not a surprise he didn't survive a subsequent attempt to fly over the Arctic in a plane (admittedly, search-and-rescue missions are by their nature rushed, but nothing about his previous cavalier attitude toward planes is inconsistent with him finally dying in a plane).
It's a bit like Fritz and the War of the Bavarian Succession: times move on, old man does not live up to previous standard. :P
Also, this conversation is reminding me of the 17th century Swedish Vasa ship, which sank after sailing just 1300 meters and is now in a museum that was built just to house this ship (I assume you've been there?). I learned about it at *work*, of all places, because it was used in a conference talk, I think, illustrating the dangers of poor engineering design and how if you're a software developer, you really need to learn the lessons that that failure has to teach.
Re: Polar explorers
Wow! I can see why, it seems fascinating.
Compared to capable polar explorers like Amundsen and Nansen
Unfortunately, none of this sounds much worse than Amundsen discovering he needs a plane to take him over the North Pole NOW, before anyone else beats him there. All his attention to detail goes out the window and he's like, "Plane experts? We don't need no stinkin' plane experts!" The whole expedition was so mismanaged it's a miracle he survived it, and not a surprise he didn't survive a subsequent attempt to fly over the Arctic in a plane (admittedly, search-and-rescue missions are by their nature rushed, but nothing about his previous cavalier attitude toward planes is inconsistent with him finally dying in a plane).
It's a bit like Fritz and the War of the Bavarian Succession: times move on, old man does not live up to previous standard. :P
Also, this conversation is reminding me of the 17th century Swedish Vasa ship, which sank after sailing just 1300 meters and is now in a museum that was built just to house this ship (I assume you've been there?). I learned about it at *work*, of all places, because it was used in a conference talk, I think, illustrating the dangers of poor engineering design and how if you're a software developer, you really need to learn the lessons that that failure has to teach.