Undergraduate Seminar

1
Great Women of Physics
A retrospective in celebration ofthe
International Year of Physics
Honors Program Open House Feb 10, 2005 Charlie
Jui

• A longer version of this presentation can be
  found at
• http//www.physics.utah.edu/jui/women_in_physics.
  html

2
Celebration!

• 2005 Designates World Year of Physics by the
  United Nations
• Challenge continuing, and severe
  under-representation of women and some minorities
• Time for reflection.
• Opportunity for Positive Action!!!

3
Women in Physics Faculty Positions

• Graph shows of women faculty in physics by
  country
• Is there a correlation with religion???
• Catholic countries seem to have higher of
  women in physics than predominantly Protestant
  Countries
• ???
• Communist countries?

1985
4
The Situation Today

• Things have improved and are continuing to
  improve, but the U.S. still has a long way to go
• Still only about 10 faculty members are women
• Compared to Spain where that fraction is closer
  to 25 (but only 3 are full professors!)

5
Explanation?

• Some explanations were offered by Prof. Giulia
  Pancheri of INFN-Frascati during a conference in
  Helsinki, 2003.
• http//www.lnf.infn.it/theory/pancheri/helsinki_w
  .pdf
• At the start of the Age of Enlightenment when
  science and technology were advancing rapidly,
  most research work was done or sponsored by
  royalty/aristocracy, performed in the private
  laboratories.

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Early Women Physicists/Astronomers

• In this private/court setting, women participated
  along side their male siblings and spouses
• Sophie and Tycho Brahe (Astronomical data from
  which Kepler developed his three Laws of
  Planetary Motion)
• Caroline and William Herschel (discovered Uranus
  and many comets)

7
Research Shifts to Universities

• During the 17th Century, research activities
  shifted from private laboratories to
  universities.
• Universities did not admit women The elite women
  became excluded!
• Examples of U.K. and U.S.A. provided by Prof.
  Pancheri

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The Reformation

• The Reformation brought about the dissolution of
  convent schools these were in many instances the
  only educational resource available to women
• King Henry VIII ordered convent schools
  destroyed established public schools (male
  only!)

Martin Luther
King Henry VIII
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Women Physicists

• Laura Bassi (Italy 1711-1778)
• Marie Curie (Poland/France 1867-1934)
• Lise Meitner (Austria 1878-1968)
• Rosalind Franklin (U.K. 1920-1958)
• Chien-Shiung Wu (China/U.S. 1912-1997)
• Mileva Maric ???? (Serbia/Hungary/Germany/
  Switzerland 1875-1955)

10
Laura Bassi Prodigy of Bologna

• Received a Ph.D. and was appointed faculty member
  at University of Bologna in 1732 (she was 21
  years old!)
• University of Bologna was the first University in
  the world (established 1189)
• Laura Bassi, an experimental physicist, was the
  first female college instructor of any kind in
  Europe!
• She was also the second woman ever to receive a
  doctorate degree of any discipline.
• In addition to being a professor and a
  researcher, she was also a prominent social
  hostess and mother of 8 (some claim 12).

11
Progressive Leadership

• How is it that the University which could not
  protect its scholars from the Inquisition became
  so progressive?
• a 70-year old Galileo Galilei, professor at
  University of Bologna was tried for heresy and
  tortured in 1633 for advocating Copernicus
  Heliocentric Model
• The genius of Laura Bassi was recognized by
  Cardinal Prospero Lambertini (later Pope Benedict
  IVX), a progressive leader and a prodigy himself(
  received Doctorate in Law and Theology at age
  19).
• In addition to Bassi, he also appointed Maria
  Agnesi (famous mathematician and nun) to the
  University of Bologna in 1750.

12
Bassis Work

• As a reader, Laura Bassi lectured at the
  University.
• Bassi had to be chaperoned (by older ladies)
  while lecturing in the Amphitheater (students and
  other faculty were all male).
• Bassi had her own laboratory in which she
  conducted various experiments in Newtonian
  mechanics she was a leading experimentalist
• She was the ONLY woman to experiment in
  electro-magnetism before Hertha Ayrton (1890).

Hertha Marks Ayrton First woman elected to the
Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1898.
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Bassis Science

• Married fellow faculty member (physician)
  Giovanni Veratti they collaborated on medical
  applications of electricity
• Bassi repeated many of Benjamin Franklins
  experiments, She and Veratti installed the first
  lightning rod in Bologna
• Bassis work in electro-magnetism was continued
  by Luigi Galvani at Bologna and Alessandro Volta
  (inventor of the battery) at University of Pavia
  both went on to become household names.

Luigi Galvani Discovered the electro-chemical
basis for nerve action
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Challenges
Bassis Legacy

• In Italy today
• 23 of physics professors in Italy are women
• There are more female physics students (both
  undergraduate and graduate) than male.
• All graduate candidates take the same competitive
  exam for placement.
• Even now, however, the glass-ceiling at the top
  positions persists.

• Her marriage was decried by the Bolognese public
  - who wanted her to be their learned virgin
  married to the University
• She was criticized for relatively low number of
  papers because of interference from family
  duties.
• She did not become a full professor until age 65
  in 1776.

15
Maria Sklowdowka Curie

• Born in Warsaw
• Arrived in Paris in 1891 for university studies
  at the Sorbonne.
• Received degree in physics in 1893, another in
  mathematics in 1894, and a teachers diploma in
  1896
• 1895 married Pierre Curie who had already
  discovered Piezoelectric Effect and was to
  submit his Ph.D. thesis on magnetism (Curies
  Law MCB/T) the same year.

Maria Sklowdowka in 1891 before departing for
Paris
Pierre Curie
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Radiation

• In 1897 Mme. Curie started her Ph.D. thesis
  research on a systematic investigation of
  radiation discovered by Röntgen and Becquerel.
• Becquerels discovery of ionizing radiation from
  uranium was not met with excitement. He reported
  it at lAcadémie des sciences on a routine Monday
  meeting where his colleagues listened politely
  and then moved on to the next item on the agenda

Wilhelm Röntgen
Henri Becquerel
Mme. Curie had at her disposal the piezoelectric
electrometer, invented by spouse Pierre and his
brother Jacques, for the measurement of very weak
currents
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Surprising Results

• Very early in her work, Mme. Curie discovered
  that thorium gives off the same radiation as
  uranium
• She also observed that the amount of radiation
  depended only on the amount of U or Th atoms
  present, independent of the chemical compound!!!.
• Pierre abandoned his own research and joined her
  in radiation research
• She went on to look at ores with U and Th. In
  pitchblende, they found evidence of much more
  radioactive components.

Source Lecture by Nanny Fröman to the Royal
Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden,
February 28, 1996
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Discovery!

• They soon isolated what appear to be two
  previously unknown elements
• One is a metal chemically similar to bismuth
  they named it polonium in honor of her homeland
• The second was an alkali metal with properties
  almost identical to barium named radium.

• The Curies were a true partnership evidence by
  the intertwined entries in their lab notebook.
• These discoveries were submitted as Mme. Curies
  Ph.D. thesis in 1903.

19
Nobel Prize and Honor!

• In the same year (1903) in which Mme. Curie
  presented her Ph.D. thesis, the Curies were
  jointly awarded ½ the Nobel Prize in Physics.
• Mm.e Curie went on to win the Nobel Prize in
  Chemistry in 1911. She was the first woman to win
  a Nobel Prize.
• In 1995 the French government honored the Curies
  by disinterring their bodies and reburying them
  at the Panthéon in Paris (near the Sorbonne).

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Lise Meitner

• Lise Meitner was born to a Jewish family in
  Vienna, Austria.
• Austria had prohibitions against women attending
  universities. This was lifted in 1901 and she
  entered University of Vienna and studied with
  Ludwig Boltzmann
• Boltzmann (who committed suicide in 1906) gave
  her the vision of physics as a battle for
  ultimate truth, a vision she never lost. (Otto
  Frisch, nephew)

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Work on radioactive substances

• Meitner received her Ph.D. in 1907. And went to
  work with Max Planck at the Kaiser Wilhelm
  Institute in Berlin.
• She collaborated for 30 years with Otto Hahn on
  radioactive substances.
• Hahn and Meitner were both headed separate
  sections Meitner worked on the physics and Hahn
  on the chemistry.

Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn in their Laboratory in
22
Nuclear Fission!

• Meitner moved to Sweden in 1938 after the Nazi
  annexation of Austria.
• After the discovery of neutrons by James Chadwick
  in 1932, researchers were bombarding radioactive
  elements with neutrons
• Hahn found evidence of barium in the debris from
  neutron bombardment of uranium
• Meitner and nephew Frisch used Bohrs liquid drop
  model and suggested giant resonance from neutron
  bombardment leading to fission.

Otto Hahn
James Chadwick
Lise Meitners laboratory table
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No Nobel Prize for Meitner!

• In 1944, Otto Hahn received the Nobel prize in
  chemistry, which astonished him when he heard
  About it after the end of WWII.
• He was also shocked that a nuclear weapon had
  been constructed based on their discovery
• Meitner did not received the Nobel Prize
  (why?)!!!
• Neither Hahn nor Meitner worked on the bomb.
• Ironically Meitner is often referred to as the
  Mother of the Nuclear Bomb.

Recommended Reading Lise Meitner, A Life in
Physics by Ruth Lewin Sime
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Rosalind Franklin

• Rosalind Franklin went to one of the few girls
  schools in London that taught physics and
  chemistry
• Her father was against women going to
  universities.
• She received a chemistry degree from Newham
  College, Cambridge in 1941.
• Awarded Ph.D. in chemistry in 1945 from Cambridge
  for work on carbon and graphite microstructures.
• Worked in Paris (1947-1950) and began working
  with X-ray diffraction techniques.

25
Franklin and DNA Work

• Franklin returned to England in 1951 to work at
  Kings College, London.
• She was given a lab of her own by director John
  Randall and assigned the task of working on DNA
  structure
• Maurice Wilkins, who had previously worked on DNA
  but was not active, was on leave. On his return
  he thought she was a lab assistant.
• Many authors mistakenly identify Wilkins as
  Franklins supervisor
• In fact the two were equals at Randalls lab.

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Scientific Misconduct?

• Franklin made by far the best X-ray diffraction
  photos
• During 1951-1953 she almost solved the DNA
  structure she had already measured the unit cell
  dimensions
• She was scooped by Watson and Crick they were
  shown one of her diffraction photographs along
  with unit cell dimensions by Wilkins.
• Watson and crick published in Nature in 1953.
  Franklins own article appeared in the same issue
  as supporting evidence

James Watson and Francis Crick Crick was known
to have been giving seminars claiming that using
X-ray crystallography to study DNA structure was
a futile mad pursuit Watson reduced Franklin to
a insignificant caricature in his 1968 book The
Double Helix
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No Nobel Prize for Franklin

• Rosalind Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958.
• James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins
  were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and
  Medicine in 1962.
• Neither Watson nor Crick mentioned Franklin in
  their Nobel addresses.
• Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.
• To her death, Franklin never knew that Wilkins
  had shown Watson and Crick her diffraction photo.

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Short Lesson in X-ray Diffraction of DNA (by
Tamara Young)

• Famous diffraction photograph 51 (of B-DNA) that
  Wilkins showed Watson and Crick

29
Interpreting The Image

• You are familiar with this interference pattern.
  This is caused by light passing through 2 slits,
  and produces an image like the one seen below on
  a screen.
• So, if you were to see an image like this, you
  would know that you had 2 interference points.

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• Likewise, these are diffraction patterns from
  benzene molecules. (A benzene molecule has 6
  interference points, arranged in a hexagon.)
• In addition to the snowflake shape, you can
  obtain information about the number and placing
  of the benzene molecules from the diffraction
  pattern.

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The DNA Diffraction Pattern

• This diffraction pattern is characteristic of a
  helix.
• The rows of spots are due to the parallel planes
  of interference.
• The cross is from the zig and zag of the helix.
• The varying intensity pattern indicates that
  there is a double (instead of a single) helix.

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Measurements

• h the distance between bases
• p the longitudinal period
• q the pitch angle

q
1/h
1/p
h
p
q
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A simulation (Ziggy Peacock)

• We can simulate the X-ray diffraction of DNA with
  laser diffraction of light bulb filaments.
• I am working on a new laboratory activity for the
  students to measure the pitch angle and the
  longitudinal period of a light bulb filament
  using an ordinary He-Ne laser expected to

34
Chien-Shiung (Madame) Wu

• From Shanghai, China
• Received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1940
• Worked on the Manhattan Project (development of
  the first nuclear bomb in Los Alamos) during WWII
• Taught at Smith College and at Princeton
• Joined Columbia University in 1944 and remained
  there for the next 37 years
• Mme. Wu died in 1997.

35
No Nobel for Wu!

• In 1956, Mme. Wus Columbia colleagues T.D. Lee
  and C. N. Yang proposed the idea of
  parity-violation.
• Mme. Wu performed a milestone experiment to
  demonstrate this effect
• Lee and Yang won the Nobel Prize in Physics in
  1957.
• Mme. Wu did not share the prize. She did later
  receive a Wolf Prize.

36
Mileva Maric

• Born in Hungary to Serbian parents
• Was one of very few women ever accepted in the
  same program at Zurich (now ETH) that Albert
  Einstein was in
• Took the same classes as Albert Einstein
• According to biographer Andrea Gabor, was a
  better student than Albert

37
Mileva Maric

• In 1986, previously unknown documents, including
  love letters were found.
• Discovery of a love child named Liserl given up
  for adoption
• In some of these letters (1901-1903) references
  were made of our work and our theory of
  relative motion
• Some, including Gabor, claim that Maric did all
  of Einsteins mathematical work (allegedly
  witnessed by a boarder)
• Supporting evidence from linguistic analysis.

38
Mileva Maric

• Soviet Academician Abram Joffe, working as
  Rontgens post-doc 1905, claimed to have seen
  the original manuscript of the Paper on Special
  Relativity with the name Einstein-Marity
  (Hungarian form of Maric)
• Maric was known to have used that form of name
  (customary in Switzerland)
• Albert was not known to have used that
  namealthough some men in Switzerland do adopt
  such hyphenationsit is not required nor is it
  common (State department document attests to this
  convention to this day).
• Evidence is inconclusive and controversial.
• One hour documentary film Einsteins Wife aired
  by PBS
• http//www.pbs.org/opb/einsteinswife/

39
Brownian Motion

• In 2004 I collaborated with Sid Rudolph and
  Gernot Laicher (Physics Dept.) to develop an
  experiment to measure the mole (Avogadro
  Number) using Brownian motion of micro-spheres.
• Award from Teaching Committee purchased 8
  microscopes
• Experiment first run by the ACCESS women scholars
  in UGS 1430 (summer 2004)
• Experiment now part of PHYCS 2209/2219 (with
  further 7 microscopes from the Physics Dept)
• Equipment is available for this proposed course.

Click picture to see movie of Brownian Motion of
micro-spheres
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Let us Celebrate 2005!