October 13th – Ada Lovelace Day

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

As I’ve written countless times (it’s the motivation of this blog) – women have made revolutionary contributions to science and very often go unrecognized. I am endlessly happy when they are acknowledged and celebrated, as Ada Lovelace is on October 13th.

She was the only legitimate daughter of Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Noel, born in 1815. Her father was a poet, a leading figure in the Romantic movement. He died in 1823 and never knew Ada. Ada’s mother didn’t want Ada to grow up as a poet, with a temperament similar to Lord Byron. She instead encouraged Ada to study mathematics and science.

Her creativity found a solid foundation in mathematics. In 1823, she drew up the design for a flying machine. She loved to discuss all things intellectual and it is this passion that connected her to Charles Babbage in 1833.

Babbage was a professor of Mathematics at Cambridge and is known as the inventor of the Analytical Engine – a machine used to complete calculations. For nine months in between the years of 1842 and 1843, Babbage enlisted Ada’s help in translating an article published by an Italian engineer regarding the device.

She worked on translating the paper, while supplementing the article with notes of her own. These notes are the source of her renown.

She recognized the analytical engine’s potential went beyond calculations. In the supplemental notes, she wrote what is considered the algorithm for the first computer program. She noted the computer could be used for an indefinite number of functions, ranging in complexity (even alluding to future uses like computer-generated music).

In 1852, she passed away of cancer at age 37 and was buried next to the father she never knew.

Her accomplishments did not go entirely unrecognized. The US Department of Defense uses a computer language called “Ada”, named after the woman herself. And on today, October 13th, we celebrate her legacy and tell her story in hopes of encouraging women to follow in her footsteps.

Tu Youyou: China’s Groundbreaking Woman in Medicine.

Tu is not a traditional Nobel Prize winner.

Tu Youyou is a described as a “modest” woman. She is 80 years old and still works on understanding artemsinin in her lab in Beijing.

Perhaps you’ve recently heard her name and for a good reason: She was awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine for her groundbreaking work on a treatment for malaria.

So what is extraordinary about her? She has no postgraduate degree. She graduated from a four year college, but does not have a PhD. And she didn’t let that stop her from doing work that has changed lives around the world.

In 1967, Communist leader Mao Zedong was faced with a bit of problem. Chinese soldiers, who were fighting Americans in Vietnam, were infected and dying of malaria. So, he created a secret government unit known as Mission 523 whose sole purpose was to discover a therapy for malaria.

Two years after the program’s inception, Tu was asked to become a lead researcher of the Mission 523 project. She was trained in ancient Chinese medicine and her degree was from the Peking University Health Science Center, so she was qualified to do this kind of work.

At the start of her search, hundreds of thousands of drugs were being tested as a treatment for malaria but none of them delivered any promising results.

Her training in traditional Chinese medicine paid off. Upon perusing old documents about the treatment of malaria, she found that around 400AD people were treated with a compound from sweet wormwood.

Sweet wormwood

The team eventually discovered the compound they believed was the key ingredient to treating malaria: artemsinin. Initially, the team’s extractions were unsuccessful. It wasn’t until Tu suggested to heat the compound without reaching its boiling point that the drug was successful in mice trials.

The chemical structure of artemsinin

As the lead of the project, Tu volunteered to be the first human to try the drug. She is quoted saying, “As head of this research group, I have the responsibility.” Her work was published (with great anonymity, since this was a secret government mission) in 1977.

Tu is the 12th woman to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine. She is also the first Chinese scientist to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine and the Lasker Award – ever. All of this without a doctorate degree.

Maria Mitchell: Star-Gazer Extraordinaire

Maria Mitchell is a name you may be familiar with if you grew up around Nantucket, a small island off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This was her home town and they have preserved her memory since she died in 1889.

Unlike most women of her time, Maria Mitchell was welcomed into school without a problem. As a member of the Quaker faith, she was encouraged to participate in education just like the boys. Perhaps this is where her love for learning was born.

Her father was a passionate teacher and after working in school administration, he started a school of his own. Maria was a student at his school, but also became a teacher’s assistant – a move that was not usual for girls.

Maria Mitchell and her father.

She followed in her father’s footsteps in more ways than one – she loved to teach, but she also began getting involved with her father’s astronomy hobby. They both adored navigation and surveying the night skies from the lens of their telescope.

She was a fast learner. At age 12, she helped her father calculate the exact position of a solar eclipse. By age 14, local sailor entrusted her with important navigational calculations for long journeys by sea.

She was a woman of many trades – she opened her own school, she became a librarian. But above everything else she was interested in, astronomy and the beauty of the night sky persisted.

On October 1, 1847 she discovered a comet. This rocketed her into the spotlight.

Much later in 1865, she was hired by Vassar College as the first astronomy professor – male or female. She is also credited as being the first professional female astronomer in the United States.

Maria Mitchell seated inside the Vassar College Observatory.

After several years of teaching at Vassar College, she learned her salary was less than her male counterparts. She fought for a salary increase and got it.

Maria Mitchell has a number of awards and titles. She was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She was awarded a gold medal from the King of Denmark, with the words “Non Frustra Signorum Obitus Speculamur et Ortus” scripted in Latin (this translates to “Not in vain do we watch the setting and rising of the stars).

The Maria Mitchell Observatory

She died in 1889 at age 70. But she leaves behind a tremendous legacy. The Maria Mitchell Observatory in Nantucket is named for her. She was inducted into the United States’ National Women’s Hall of Fame. A World War II ship named the SS Maria Mitchell was named in her honor. The Metro North commuter rail in New York has a train named the Maria Mitchell Comet.

She is a woman well-remembered by her home-town. It’s about time the rest of the world knows her story.

Mary Anning: Fossil Collector, Businesswoman, Pioneer

If you have ever seen a marine dinosaur drawing or fossil from the Jurassic period, it is likely you are looking at something produced by Mary Anning.

Marry Anning was born in 1799 to a family that resided on the southern shore of Great Britain. Her father was fascinated by fossils and regularly searched for them under the low-hanging cliff that their house sat upon. He died when she was very young, but not before passing along a passion for fossil collecting.

She had little formal education because her family was so poor. She taught herself anatomy, geology, paleontology – all important disciplines to keep her father’s hobby and spirit with her. After her father passed away, the only money they made came from fossils they sold or from charities that took pity on them. Mary was in charge of running the fossil business and ensuring their family was provided for.

Her fossil collecting went far beyond a simple hobby or a business scheme: her findings have shaped our knowledge of prehistoric life, particularly marine Jurassic dinosaurs.

She is credited for finding the first ichthyosaur fossils, although this claim is contentious. There are stories that Mary’s brother found part of the fossils first and Mary finished the job.

Ichthyosaur fossils

But a finding that most certainly belongs to Mary was the discovery of the first plesiosaur fossil in 1823. French anatomist Georges Cuvier verified the finding as legitimate and this brought Mary a lot of respect in the scientific community.

A copy of Mary’s drawings of a plesiosaur

Plesiosaur

Because she was so prolific, she attracted hoards of tourists to Lyme Regis (her hometown). Scientists and the general public would pay money to come and find fossils with her. To this day, you can travel to where her house still stands (although it’s now a museum) and admire some of her findings. You can even spend some time with a Mary Anning impersonator!

Mary died from breast cancer in 1847, but not before leaving an indelible mark on the field of paleontology. Despite the fact that she was a woman, people recognized her work.

the extraordinary thing in this young woman is that she had made herself so thoroughly acquainted with the science that the moment she finds any bones she knows to what tribe they belong. . . . by reading and application she has arrived to that greater degree of knowledge as to be in the habit of writing and talking with professors and other clever men on the subject, and they all acknowledge that she understands more of the science than anyone else in this kingdom” – Lady Harriet Silvester, who visited Anning in 1824

After she passed away, her obituary was published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. Interestingly, the society did not permit women to join until 1904, fifty-seven years after her death.

Emmy Noether: Resilience and Brilliance

Some of the most well-known names in science belong to the world of physics and math: Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are prime examples. But the woman who some claim made fundamental contributions to modern physics goes largely unrecognized: Emmy Noether.

Born to a family of mathematicians, Emmy was cornered into studying English, French, and the piano as a young girl. But she was consistently drawn to the allure of abstract algebra. When the time came for her to attend a university, she chose the one in her hometown of Erlangen, Germany.

At the time, they did not allow women to formally enroll. For each class she wanted to take, she had to speak with the professor and ensure she was allowed to audit the class. Eventually, she was awarded the equivalent of a bachelors degree in mathematics.

She completed graduate school, studying at the University of Gottingen and her undergraduate institution. She finished her dissertation regarding mathematical invariance and began to work at the University of Erlangen. From 1908 to 1915, she worked without a title or a salary.

Her male counterparts, particularly famous mathematician David Hilbert, often fought on her behalf to get her a paying position as an associate professor. He is quoted saying, “I do not see the sex of the candidate as an argument against her…After all, we are a University, not a bathhouse.”

In 1915, Einstein’s theory of relativity was published and mathematicians around the globe buzzed about the findings. She studied Einstein’s work through the lens of mathematical invariance and discovered a theory that would shape modern physics forever: Noether’s Theory.

Noether’s theory boils down to this: there is a mathematical relationship between the symmetry of nature and the conservation laws. In other words, if something is symmetrical it will obey a conservation law. For example, a bicycle wheel is radially symmetric. The corresponding conservation of angular momentum is what will keep a rider upright and prevent them from falling.

In more sophisticated applications, Noether’s theory helped physicists to connect the symmetry of time with the conservation of energy. Her theory was revolutionary and Einstein took note of her brilliance.

In the judgement of the most competent living mathematicians, Fraulein Noether was the most significant, creative, mathematical genuis thus far produced since the higher education of women began. – Albert Einstein, to the New York Times after she passed away

Emmy Noether was Jewish and when Hitler rose to power in Germany, she was fired and force to flee. In 1933, Einstein helped to secure a job for her at Bryn Mawr College in the United States. Shortly thereafter, she died at age 53 following an operation on an ovarian cyst.

Google Doodle commemorating Noether’s 133rd birthday on March 23rd, 2015.

Emmy Noether was a Jewish woman; she had a lot going against her at the time. She was constantly overcoming obstacles and creating work that left a permanent mark on fields such as mathematics, physics, and quantum mechanics. She defied every boundary that sought to confine her within a stereotype.

For a condensed version of this blog, check out the vlog I made on Emmy Noether: