Live Science spoke with Chapman about his book, which has been short-listed for the 2026 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize . KC: I think that's essential. When we start looking at the first actual chemistry that's being done, it is people trying to create beautiful works of art, perfumes, things like that. Whether or not we're going to discover some kind of new, groundbreaking technology that's going to change the world, I can't see that happening. The one shocker for me is this book "The Secrets of Isabella Cortese," which was a man pretending to be a woman to sell his science book.