Women in Science: Pioneers and Innovators

Study Notes

Annie Jump Cannon

American astronomer who specialized in stellar spectra.
Worked at the Harvard College Observatory for over 44 years.
Classified over 350,000 stars using her 1901 system, which laid the groundwork for the Harvard Spectral Classification system.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt

Astronomer who studied at Radcliffe College and the Harvard College Observatory.
Observed a regular pattern in the brightness of Cepheid variable stars, which is important for measuring distances to other galaxies.
Discovered more than 2,400 variable stars and four novae.

Harriet Brooks

Canadian nuclear physicist, the first female nuclear physicist in Canada.
Graduated from McGill University and studied under J.J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford.
Worked in Marie Curie's laboratory and discovered that one element can transform into another through nuclear decay.

Srinivasa Ramanujan

Indian mathematician who made significant contributions to mathematical analysis and number theory.
Had minimal formal training but excelled in mathematics, sending theorems and ideas directly to G.H. Hardy in Cambridge.
Awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in 1916 and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Suffered from tuberculosis and returned to India, passing away in 1920.

Erwin Schrödinger

Austrian physicist who studied physics at the University of Vienna and the University of Zurich.
Developed a wave equation that revolutionized the understanding of quantum physics.
His work provided a new interpretation of atomic electrons as "clouds" of probability rather than fixed orbits.
His contributions fundamentally changed the way we view atomic structure.

Ronald Fisher

British statistician and geneticist who pioneered the application of statistics to scientific experimentation.
Reconciled apparent inconsistencies between Charles Darwin's ideas on natural selection and Gregor Mendel's experiments on inheritance using statistical methods.
In 1918, he published a paper detailing the use of statistical tools.

Harold Urey and Stanley Miller

American chemists who simulated early Earth conditions in the laboratory to study the origin of life.
Their experiment used electrical sparks to simulate lightning, producing organic molecules (carbon-based compounds) from simple inorganic precursors (hydrogen, methane, and ammonia).

Description

Explore the remarkable contributions of women in science through the lives of notable figures like Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta Swan Leavitt, along with the achievements of Harriet Brooks. This quiz highlights their groundbreaking research and impacts in astronomy and nuclear physics.