Buzz
The influence of women on our world is undeniable, despite the fact that many have not received the credit they truly deserve in historical records. Historically, women were often viewed primarily as mothers and homemakers, with little regard for their contributions as scientists.
This perspective, however, is both incorrect and unjust. While female scientists frequently faced obstacles in receiving the recognition they earned, their contributions led to numerous revolutionary breakthroughs in science. Their work continues to shape the field today.
10. DNA
Yes, that's right. A woman was the one who uncovered the structure of DNA.
In 1962, three men were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on the double helix, the molecular structure of DNA. However, the actual discovery was made by a woman named Rosalind Franklin, who collaborated with them.
Unfortunately, she was overshadowed when her male counterparts claimed the prize. Despite this, Franklin's contributions were essential to the discovery, even though she was not given the recognition she deserved.
Franklin was the one who captured a close-up image of DNA, which appeared as an 'X' when the film was developed. This image, known as 'Photograph 51,' later inspired a play bearing the same name.
This discovery significantly advanced our understanding of human biology and the body's inner workings, which, in turn, accelerated progress in physics, biology, and chemistry ever since.
9. Earth's Inner Core
Earth is made up of several layers. While there are different methods of categorizing these layers, we'll focus on the crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core, which was first identified by Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann in 1936.
The outer core is molten, whereas the Earth's inner core is entirely solid. The discovery of the inner core has been instrumental in determining the age of the Earth and unlocking many other scientific insights.
By studying the Earth's inner core cooling rate, we’ve concluded that it likely began to solidify between 0.5 and 2 billion years ago. Moreover, the growth of the inner core is thought to play a crucial role in generating the Earth's magnetic field.
8. The Structure of the Milky Way Galaxy
Heidi Jo Newberg, a Physics Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is widely recognized for her significant contributions to our understanding of the structure of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy that contains our solar system and stretches across at least 100,000 light-years.
Newberg and her team discovered that the Milky Way 'cannibalizes' stars from smaller galaxies. They also determined that it is much larger than previously believed and that its structure is more complex, with additional ripples.
In 2002, Newberg’s research revealed that the Milky Way's disk has a corrugated shape, leading to an updated estimate of its width—expanding it from 100,000 light-years to approximately 150,000 light-years. However, this revised measurement is still a topic of ongoing debate among scientists.
7. Nuclear Fission
As was too often the case, Lise Meitner, one of the pioneers in the discovery of nuclear fission, was overlooked in 1945 when the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded solely to her partner, Otto Hahn, who accepted it alone for work they had done together.
This wasn’t the first time Meitner was overlooked. In 1923, she discovered radiationless transitions, but the credit was given to Pierre Victor Auger, a man who made the same discovery two years later. As a result, the phenomenon is known as the 'Auger effect,' named after him.
Meitner coined the term 'fission' in 1939 and published a paper explaining the process, with assistance from her nephew, Otto Frisch. Nuclear fission would later play a key role in the development of the atomic bomb.
6. Kinetic Energy
Gabrielle-Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Chatelet, was an 18th-century philosopher, mathematician, and physicist. She provided the first-known description of kinetic energy and translated Sir Isaac Newton’s influential work Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy into French, a translation still considered the standard today.
Kinetic energy refers to the energy that an object or particle has due to its motion. Before du Chatelet's work, it was believed by figures like Newton and Voltaire that kinetic energy was proportional to the velocity of a moving object. Du Chatelet revised this theory, adding that kinetic energy also depends on the object's mass.
In total, she published four scientific works and five additional pieces, cementing her legacy in the fields of mathematics and physics.
5. Radiation
Marie Curie, a French scientist born in Poland, made groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of radiation. Her research focused on radiation from materials like uranium and thorium, which she found to be radioactive. Additionally, she developed a method to measure the total amount of radiation emitted.
Marie Curie's most significant achievement was her bold (for her time) claim that radioactivity is determined by an element's atomic structure, not its physical form. She was the first to introduce the term 'radioactivity' and pioneered the field of atomic physics.
Marie Curie earned the Nobel Prize twice—once for physics in 1903 and again for chemistry in 1911.
4. Pulsars
On November 28, 1967, astronomers Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Anthony Hewish made a groundbreaking discovery—the pulsar. This rapidly rotating neutron star emits beams of electromagnetic radiation as it spins, offering a remarkable insight into the universe.
The odds were slim that they would discover one, as the beam from a pulsar must be aimed directly at Earth to be detected. By sheer luck, Burnell and Hewish were observing the night sky on a clear evening when they made their incredible discovery.
In a lighthearted moment, Burnell and Hewish jokingly referred to the electromagnetic pulses as 'Little Green Men,' speculating that extraterrestrials might be trying to communicate with us through their beams. However, the source turned out to be a natural phenomenon in certain stars.
The unique radiation pulses emitted by pulsars occur at precise intervals. This 'pulsing' effect is caused by the star's rotation, with the beam of light constantly crossing the observer’s line of sight.
3. HIV
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has infected over 70 million people and claimed the lives of more than 35 million since its identification in the 1980s. In many ways, it has become our contemporary equivalent of the black plague.
In 2008, French virologist Francoise Barre-Sinoussi shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Luc Montagnier and Harald zur Hausen. Barre-Sinoussi and Montagnier each received half of the prize for their pivotal discovery of HIV, while zur Hausen was awarded the other half for his discovery of human papilloma viruses responsible for cervical cancer.
Barre-Sinoussi and her team were determined to uncover the cause of AIDS. Suspecting a retrovirus was behind it, they succeeded in identifying it when they examined the lymph node of an AIDS patient.
Unfortunately, Barre-Sinoussi holds the grim belief that finding a cure for HIV is highly unlikely.
2. Slow Light
Did you know that, under certain conditions, the speed of light can be dramatically reduced?
Indeed, it can, thanks to Danish physicist Lene Vestergaard Hau, who discovered the phenomenon of 'slow light.' In a vacuum, light travels at a staggering 299,792 kilometers (186,282 miles) per second. However, when light passes through matter, its speed decreases.
Hau and her team at Harvard were able to drastically slow the speed of light to a mere 27 kilometers per hour (17 mph) by injecting light into a Bose-Einstein condensate, a special state of matter. Even more remarkable, they succeeded in stopping light entirely within the condensate.
Hau will forever be remembered as the first person to halt light in its tracks.
1. Top Quark
In the realm of physics, top quarks are the heaviest of all elementary particles. This was confirmed by the Large Hadron Collider in 2014. Quarks are minuscule particles that form neutrons and protons, which, together with electrons, make up the three fundamental components of atoms. Atoms, in turn, are the basic units of matter in our universe.
The six types (or flavors) of quarks include up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top. The discovery of the top quark was made by Melissa Franklin and her team at Fermilab. This wasn’t her only significant contribution to particle physics; she also participated in the team at CERN that discovered the long-sought-after Higgs boson.
