Scientists Discarded One Of The Most Groundbreaking Astronomical Discoveries Because The Researcher Was A Woman
For a long time, many scientists were wrong about what the sun is made-up of until a 25-year-old student wrote an extraordinary doctor’s thesis proving that sun and other stars are made mainly of helium and hydrogen.
More info: www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk
The student who made this groundbreaking discovery was Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin. However, only a few of us attribute this discovery to her, because Cecilia was robbed of the credit for one of the greatest astronomical accomplishments because there was no such concept as gender equality at the time.
In 2002, Jeremy Knowles, the dean of the Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences said about Cecilia: “Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Her newspaper obituaries do not mention her greatest astronomy discovery. […] Every high school student knows such famous scientists as Newton who discovered gravity, Darwin who discovered evolution, even that Einstein discovered relativity. But when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most prevalent element in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know. … after the award of her doctorate, she lectured in the astronomy department, but her lectures were not listed in the course catalog. The astronomer directed graduate research without status; she had no research leave, and the department categorized her small salary under ‘equipment.’ And yet she survived and flourished”
Cecilia’s life was filled with interesting facts and stories. Born in 1900 in Wendover, England, from a young age, she dreamt of becoming a scientist and was eager to achieve her goal. In 1919 she was awarded a scholarship for Natural Sciences at Newnham College Cambridge University. Even though Cecilia successfully completed her studies, she was not awarded a degree because Cambridge did not grant degrees to women until 1948.
Cecilia realized that with so little opportunities for women in the UK scientific community, her only option was to become a school teacher. However, after being introduced to the Director of the Harvard College Observatory, Harlow Shapley, she decided to continue to pursue a career in astronomy sciences and moved to the United States.
Her former lecturer Arthur Eddington wrote a reference in which he said: “She has attained a wide knowledge of physical science including astronomy, and possesses the valuable qualities of energy and enthusiasm in her work … I believe that she is the type of person who, given the opportunity, would devote her whole life to astronomy and she would not want to run away after a few years’ training to get married.”
In 1923 she became a National Research Fellow at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Two years later she became the first person to earn a doctorate at Radcliffe College in the field of astronomy for graduate work done at the Harvard College Observatory.
Her revolutionary doctorate thesis, in which she argued that stars are composed mainly of helium and hydrogen, was questioned. Fellow astronomist, Henry Norris Russell, who had doubts about her theory, persuaded Cecilia not to present her thesis, only to publish her discovery in 1930 as his own discovery. Cecilia’s 200-page long research was ignored, and she was robbed of her due credit.
Eventually, astronomers recognized her work. Otto Struve described her original thesis as “the most brilliant Ph.D. thesis ever written in astronomy.”
Sadly, this would not be the only time she was dissuaded from publishing her findings. She was talked out of publishing her discovery of the Stark effect in the spectra of the hottest stars and findings on interstellar absorption. These discoveries were later established and credited to other scientists.
Cecilia was given the title of Astronomer in 1938. She held this position until 1956 when she became the first woman professor at Harvard. She also became the first woman to serve as a department chair, and in 1956 she began serving Chair of the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University.
Despite the gender discrimination she faced, Cecilia persisted and paved the way for other women to pursue a career in science. Today she is known as the greatest female astronomer in history.
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Share on FacebookIt's depressing how women were segregated against. It still bothers me when little boys say that girls are weak and prissy.
Some petty, insecure men represented here. Glad that some stood up for her but this sucks. Brilliance is brilliance. And dirtbags are dirtbags.
I want to become an astronomer since I was like 8 and I hope I can make a difference too just like her
Best of luck with that! I hope someday your name will be in the history books.
Load More Replies...Women all over the world, be it in the sphere of study or otherwise, have been discriminated against from time immemorial. Those thesis that she wrote which were accredited to men should be re-accredited to her name. What they did to her is shameful to say the least. Doubtless there are students of Astronomy today who have benefited from her studies.
Really sad .. and not much changed since then. I have a "men´s work" and I am still surprised how for some people their stereotypes are so important. I have met colleagues who even refused to talk to me and despised and belittled me from the beginning. When I proved I know the job some did not change the attitude even after. I should say that I live in a center Europe, not Saudi Arabia. We fly to the moon and can see atoms with the right equipment but bigotry and stupidity lives on.
This needs to be made into a movie like The Imitation Game or A Beautiful Mind were.
I think that's a great idea, articles like this are good but movies have a much wider reach and cultural influence and the next time that some girl is having some guy explain to her that women have made no real achievement she will have the film of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin to reference.
Load More Replies...Quite an inspirational person! However, not all facts here seem to be right. As far as I understand, Russel did not "publish her discovery in 1930 as his own discovery". He did own research and came to the same results, and this is a normal thing in science. He credited her in his paper on these findings. Dissuading her to publish her results was likely part of the scientific culture of that times, weighting serniority and the established opinion very high. Up to today it is much harder to publish something controversial than acknowledgements of what is established. Other now acclaimed scientists faced the same fate. However, undoubtedly being a women was an extremely high obstacle for being considered "senior" in these days.
Agree, that's exactly how it played out. After all, Henry Norris Russell was already an established name , having published in 1910, along with Ejnar Hertzsprung, the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram for star classification. The idea that the sun was mainly composed of hydrogen and helium was such a paradigm shift for an astronomer of the period, that it simply took four years of furious study for him to accept such an impossible result... and when he finally bowed to the inevitable, he credited Cecilia's 1925 study in his “On the Composition of the Sun’s Atmosphere”. In a way the story is a cautionary tale against becoming too ossified in your beliefs that you discount out of hand the findings of someone younger simply because they don't agree with the established model...
Load More Replies...So, let's us all remember her name! Payne-Gaposchkin. The person who discovered what the universe is made of. (And don't call her Cicilia. We don't call Newton "Isaac" or Einstein "Albert".)
When you think that Marie Curie got a tenure only because her husband Pierre died and they didn't have any other male to take the lead... Would Pierre had survived, she probably would have faded out from history. Saw her grand daughter give a talk recently and it just blew my mind what she had to go through just because she was a woman (and a foreigner at that!).
Another sister of science who has been sadly over looked. She was a trail blazer, much like Rosalind Franklin (different field of science I know).
I’m so happy that this could now be brought to our attention and hope that more people will get to hear her remarkable story
I was curious what the actual thesis was, and it's a bit above my head but still a good read, especially the segment giving a longer explanation as to why it was discounted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Payne-Gaposchkin#Doctoral_thesis (It's only a few paragraphs.)
"given the opportunity, would devote her whole life to astronomy and she would not want to run away after a few years’ training to get married." Remember folks, this was a different era. Back then girls weren't known to have careers very often and the vast, vast majority really would quit and be a housewife so it's not reprehensible to assume a women of the era would follow the status quo, making it a waste to train someone and give them a seat if statistically speaking she'd up and quit. Sucks for the women who did want a career, but it wasn't totally out of malice (although I'm sure some of it was).
This same mentality still exists today. For example in Japan, where female candidates have not been considered for (a?) Medical school. I've put the "a?" there, as I wouldn't be surprised if this was a widespread problem. I mean, it must be great being a country that can afford to discard a considerable demography...
Load More Replies...It's depressing how women were segregated against. It still bothers me when little boys say that girls are weak and prissy.
Some petty, insecure men represented here. Glad that some stood up for her but this sucks. Brilliance is brilliance. And dirtbags are dirtbags.
I want to become an astronomer since I was like 8 and I hope I can make a difference too just like her
Best of luck with that! I hope someday your name will be in the history books.
Load More Replies...Women all over the world, be it in the sphere of study or otherwise, have been discriminated against from time immemorial. Those thesis that she wrote which were accredited to men should be re-accredited to her name. What they did to her is shameful to say the least. Doubtless there are students of Astronomy today who have benefited from her studies.
Really sad .. and not much changed since then. I have a "men´s work" and I am still surprised how for some people their stereotypes are so important. I have met colleagues who even refused to talk to me and despised and belittled me from the beginning. When I proved I know the job some did not change the attitude even after. I should say that I live in a center Europe, not Saudi Arabia. We fly to the moon and can see atoms with the right equipment but bigotry and stupidity lives on.
This needs to be made into a movie like The Imitation Game or A Beautiful Mind were.
I think that's a great idea, articles like this are good but movies have a much wider reach and cultural influence and the next time that some girl is having some guy explain to her that women have made no real achievement she will have the film of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin to reference.
Load More Replies...Quite an inspirational person! However, not all facts here seem to be right. As far as I understand, Russel did not "publish her discovery in 1930 as his own discovery". He did own research and came to the same results, and this is a normal thing in science. He credited her in his paper on these findings. Dissuading her to publish her results was likely part of the scientific culture of that times, weighting serniority and the established opinion very high. Up to today it is much harder to publish something controversial than acknowledgements of what is established. Other now acclaimed scientists faced the same fate. However, undoubtedly being a women was an extremely high obstacle for being considered "senior" in these days.
Agree, that's exactly how it played out. After all, Henry Norris Russell was already an established name , having published in 1910, along with Ejnar Hertzsprung, the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram for star classification. The idea that the sun was mainly composed of hydrogen and helium was such a paradigm shift for an astronomer of the period, that it simply took four years of furious study for him to accept such an impossible result... and when he finally bowed to the inevitable, he credited Cecilia's 1925 study in his “On the Composition of the Sun’s Atmosphere”. In a way the story is a cautionary tale against becoming too ossified in your beliefs that you discount out of hand the findings of someone younger simply because they don't agree with the established model...
Load More Replies...So, let's us all remember her name! Payne-Gaposchkin. The person who discovered what the universe is made of. (And don't call her Cicilia. We don't call Newton "Isaac" or Einstein "Albert".)
When you think that Marie Curie got a tenure only because her husband Pierre died and they didn't have any other male to take the lead... Would Pierre had survived, she probably would have faded out from history. Saw her grand daughter give a talk recently and it just blew my mind what she had to go through just because she was a woman (and a foreigner at that!).
Another sister of science who has been sadly over looked. She was a trail blazer, much like Rosalind Franklin (different field of science I know).
I’m so happy that this could now be brought to our attention and hope that more people will get to hear her remarkable story
I was curious what the actual thesis was, and it's a bit above my head but still a good read, especially the segment giving a longer explanation as to why it was discounted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Payne-Gaposchkin#Doctoral_thesis (It's only a few paragraphs.)
"given the opportunity, would devote her whole life to astronomy and she would not want to run away after a few years’ training to get married." Remember folks, this was a different era. Back then girls weren't known to have careers very often and the vast, vast majority really would quit and be a housewife so it's not reprehensible to assume a women of the era would follow the status quo, making it a waste to train someone and give them a seat if statistically speaking she'd up and quit. Sucks for the women who did want a career, but it wasn't totally out of malice (although I'm sure some of it was).
This same mentality still exists today. For example in Japan, where female candidates have not been considered for (a?) Medical school. I've put the "a?" there, as I wouldn't be surprised if this was a widespread problem. I mean, it must be great being a country that can afford to discard a considerable demography...
Load More Replies...
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