Introduction
As a very young child I remember seeing all those adverts for physics/engineering/mechanical based toys and thinking “I wish, but they are for boys”. This didn’t come from my family, friends or school but just from society as a whole: the way things are advertised, how TV shows and films are written and so on.
So, for the 10th anniversary of the “International Day of Women and Girls in Science” (or IDWGS (which is still a mouthful)) I want to share some amazing women who have inspired me.
Mary Somerville
It is often said that, in 1834, Mary Somerville was the first person to be referred to as a “scientist” as she did not fit the common term “man of science”. However, this is not quite true. This does not however detract from the incredible work she did during her life. Somerville was born in Scotland in 1870 and published scientific papers on mathematics and astronomy along with five “popular science” books. In 1835 she was elected, along with Caroline Herschel, as the first female Honorary Members of the Royal Astronomical Society. She was among the first to predict the existence of Neptune, and her book “On the Connexion of the Physical Science” was among the best selling of the 17th Century.
Somerville was a huge advocate for women’s rights and abolishment of slavery. Since 2017 she has been featured on the Scottish £10 note after winning a vote organised by the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace is often referred to as “the world’s first computer programmer”. In 1833 she became good friends, through Mary Somerville, with Charles Babbage, who had plans for an “Analytical Engine” (essentially a computer), though this was never built. Lovelace studied these plans and wrote many notes about using codes so that the machine could handle letters as well as numbers and described a way that a set of instructions could be repeated on the machine: a loop.
Lovelace died aged only 36, however she continues to inspire many today. When the first modern computers were built by Alan Turing, over 100 years after Lovelace’s death, her notes were a source of inspiration for him.
Emmy Noether
Emmy Noether was a German mathematician born in 1882. Although a mathematician, one of her discoveries is a foundation of modern physics. “Noether’s Theorem” says (mathematically) that symmetries in the universe give rise to conservation laws. As a particle physicist, Noether’s Theorem underpinned much of my work.
Noether was initially refused entry to University, and after finally obtaining an undergraduate degree and a PhD, nowhere would hire her for a permanent faculty position. Despite all of this she was one of the leading mathematicians of her time, and alongside the aforementioned theorem she was an expert in abstract algebra and algebraic topology.
Dorothy Vaughan
Along with many millions of others, I first learnt about Dorothy Vaughan’s life by watching the film “Hidden Figures”. Vaughan was a mathematician who worked at NACA (NASA’s predecessor) and was the first African-American woman to supervise a group of staff at the centre. She was a “human computer”: part of a team of African American women who performed long, tedious computations by hand. These women were not allowed to use the same facilities as their white counterparts.
When it became clear that (digital) computers would replace her work, she taught herself and other women the Fortran programming language and went on to join the Analysis and Computation Division – a racially and gender-integrated group. Her work contributed to satellite launches and the launch of American astronaut John Glenn into orbit in 1962.
Vera Rubin
Image credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA
Dark Matter commonly makes an appearance in Sci-Fi books, maybe to explain some sort of energy source or time travel. Though the uses may be fiction (only time will tell), the existence of Dark Matter is generally accepted, and one of the first to find evidence was Vera Rubin. In 1965 Rubin began studying the movement of stars within galaxies, alongside Kent Ford, and they discovered a strange phenomenon: the galaxies could only remain “intact” if there was a lot more mass within them; something that we couldn’t see.
Rubin faced many barriers through her career: she wasn’t allowed to go to her PhD advisor’s office because women weren’t allowed in that part of campus, and she had to fight to be able to present her work while visibly pregnant. Rubin advocated for women in science throughout her life and mentored aspiring female astronomers.
Jess Wade
As time goes on there are (slowly) more and more women in science, and there are so many women I could talk about. A special mention goes to Fabiola Gianotti who is the first woman Director-General at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) and she is the first person to be appointed for a full second term.
Image credit: Dave Guttridge
However, the last scientist I am going to discuss is Jess Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London. Her research focusses on polymer-based OLEDs, for which she has received several awards. Wade is most known for her public engagement and advocacy work. She has always been a strong advocate for women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) and a huge part of this is her work on Wikipedia. Wade has worked tirelessly to try and combat systemic biases (including gender and race) by adding and improving pages celebrating people in science. As of a year ago she had written over 2,100 pages herself, and inspired and encouraged many others to join in. This kind of work is so important for raising the profile of minoritised groups in STEM.
Final Comments
Despite my early belief that things like maths and science weren’t for me, I never lost my passion for them, which grew into a specific interest in particle physics. This took me all the way through a PhD, where I predominantly used Fortran! I am fortunate to be able to follow my interests from physics to data. An undergraduate degree, let alone a PhD, simply wasn’t an option for many of the above women; or only after a huge struggle to be admitted.
If you want to learn a little about my PhD research as well as some of the other amazing women I worked with, check out this video we made for International Women’s Day in 2020: Women In Physics.
Emmy the dog and a derivation of Noether's Theorem
I have been massively inspired by women in science, past and present; those who are world famous and those who I’ve been lucky enough to work with. You need to look no further than my dogs, Emmy and Rubin, to realise this. I hope that next time you picture a scientist it isn’t Albert Einstein!
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