The scientific community has always seen a large number of outstanding women, but at present, the number of female scientific researchers accounts for only 28% of the total. Today we will give us an in-depth understanding of the four female scientists who have changed the world but few people know about it.
text/Reporter Liu Xinwei Editor/Ji Jingjing
New media editor/Fang Yongzhen
In history, there are countless outstanding women who are inferior to men who have made important contributions to our society, and this is especially true in the field of science. But, if you were asked to name a female scientist, how many more could you say besides Madame Curie? Today, let’s review the four outstanding female scientists in the history of science, but rarely mentioned.
Hippatia
The first female mathematician in history
The first female scientist we are going to talk about is Hypatia. Her story is a bit early, and there is no scientist in the modern sense at that time, and it is necessary to first understand the background of the times she was in at that time.
Hippatia (born 350-370 and died 415) was born in Alexandria. After being ruled by Alexander the Great in 322 BC, this small port city in northern Egypt gradually became a "super city". In addition to gathering people from all directions and greatly developing economic and trade, there is also a museum as famous as the Alexandria Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the world (not a museum in today's sense), and it was the academic center at that time. It is said that the library in the museum contains almost all the classics that record ancient human civilization, such as the original manuscripts of philosophers such as Aristotle.
Hippatia is known as the first female mathematician in history and was hailed as a pioneer of the feminist movement in the 20th century. (Source: realmofhistory)
However, when Hippatia was born, it was already a society ruled by religion. All things that promoted the operation of society were suppressed by religion, and museums even became "desolate". People who advocate scientific truth and talented people live in dire straits. Hippatia's father, Theon of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician and astronomer. He worked in a museum and imparted knowledge and studied knowledge. He was the most knowledgeable person at that time. However, at that time, Greek mathematics had gradually declined and even had life threatening. He still worked diligently in the museum and tried his best to avoid religious struggles.
Shipatiya often has scholars at home. Influenced by her father, She has been interested in mathematics since she was a child. . By the age of 10, she has mastered quite a lot of knowledge of arithmetic and geometry. She is a genius girl. The open-minded Seyon attaches great importance to Hippatia's talent and strives to cultivate it (to become a "perfect" person and joins physical education). By the age of 20, she had read almost all the math masterpieces, and her level was comparable to her father. In order to continue pursuing knowledge, she also went overseas to "study abroad" and continued to study in Athens. After she returned, she taught mathematics and astronomy in the museum. Speaking of this, Hippatia has done something that no woman has done before.
"The Original Geometric" edited by Hipatiya, the picture shows the 9th century version. (Source: WIKI)
What academic achievements does Hipatiya have? First of all, regrettable, Hippatia did not pass on independent works, because in her time scholars were more to preserve and study classical scholarship, but she still did a very amazing job.
Euclid's "Geometric Original" is the content that is still being learned in middle school textbooks today. This masterpiece that has been passed down to this day was not printed, but only various handwritten copies. Hippatia, who was in her early twenties, edited, revised and revised it with her father, and the revised version became the standard version for centuries. The astronomy masterpiece Ptolemy's "The Great Success of Astronomy" was the most important document in the field of astronomy at that time. It had extremely profound mathematical knowledge and was edited and annotated by Hippatia and his father. The Diophantus equation, which mathematicians are still studying today, Hippatia wrote a thirteen-volume review of Diophantus's works more than 1,800 years ago.She also deeply analyzed the conic curves by studying the trajectory of celestial bodies, turning the thoughts of the ancient Greek mathematician Apollonius of Perga into an eight-volume "popular series". Synesius, Hippatia's student, later became the Bishop of Ptolemaic, recorded in his letter that he asked Hippatia to make astrodia and a hydrometer of liquids. Although historians have concluded that these were not first invented by Hippatia, her work played a very important role in the actual life at that time.
The death of Hippatia, created by Charles W. Mitchell, a British pre-Raphaelite painter. Her death also put an end to Greek science, but on the other hand, science was preserved to a certain extent as a servant girl of religion in the Middle Ages. (Source: WIKI)
In addition to these basic research, Hippatia himself is also a philosopher, developing neoplatonism, emphasizing the combination of philosophy with mathematics and science, and advocating freedom and democracy. If 370 years were used as her birth time, the 30-year-old Hippatia became the leader of the Alexander Neoplaton School, attracting many disciples. The scholar once took the honor of listening to her speech. The beautiful Hippatia was unmarried throughout her life, and despite countless suitors, this goddess who coexists with wisdom and beauty only married "truth".
Hippatia's death became a historical event. She was considered a pagan and eventually became a victim of religious and political struggles, but her spirit was passed down forever.
Hipatia's story was adapted from the movie "City Square" (Agora) (Source: Film Intel)
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Sophie German
Brade of elastic theory and "Mulan" of mathematics
When researcher Cao Zexian of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was divided into several levels according to the influence of scholars' work. The highest level is "seeing the mystery of God". Kepler's work is the top level because he discovered "God's masterpiece": planetary motion is a precise and beautiful elliptical orbit. The second level is "causing fear and persecution from the enemy", and the above-mentioned Hippatia belongs to this place. Here is the point below: "The leader of the critical expert group may make foreign foreign experts turn fans." The great philosopher Kant is here because he was criticized by Moses Mendelssohn, known as Germany's Socrates, but Mendelssohn eventually turns fans. The first two levels are too rare, but female scientists still have many seats in the third level. Let’s talk about a female mathematician, Sophie Germain (1776-1831).
Germann is known as Hippatia in the 18th century (Source: Brain Pickings)
Her childhood was also influenced by family. Germann was born in a wealthy family of businessmen in France. Her father loved philosophy and political issues, and there was also a study at home that collected precious works. When she was 13 years old, the French Revolution broke out and she was forced to stay at home. It is said that one day she mistakenly entered her study and saw a story about the history of mathematics (L'Histoire des Mathématiques) and the death of Archimedes, which opened the door to a new world!
Germann began to study mathematics, and even taught himself Latin and Greek in order to learn mathematics in order to read Newton's works. At first, German's parents were extremely opposed to girls learning mathematics, constantly interfering, and even taking away the oil lamp in the bedroom and extinguishing the fireplace in the room in winter. She was like we were secretly playing with our mobile phones in the quilt, but she secretly prepared candles and wrapped them in the quilt to learn mathematics! When my parents saw the iced ink in the morning, they gradually agreed to her learn mathematics.
In a blink of an eye, she is 18 years old. Her father's study can no longer satisfy her curiosity. At the same time, a new school has just opened in front of her house, which is later the world's top university in the comprehensive science and technology of Paris. However, she was full of confidence and found that the school did not accept women. Women are not allowed to enter the classroom, but can receive lecture notes, so she will teach herself. Later, she learned that a student had left school for some reason, so German used his name to replace the homework, with the pseudonym Mr. Blanc. The teacher realized that this was a talented man and wanted to make an appointment with him.This teacher is Joseph-Louis Lagrange, a famous French mathematician and physicist. Friends studying science will definitely not be unfamiliar with this big bull who abused you thousands of times.
Gauss said Sophie Germain proved to the world that even a woman can achieve success in the most rigorous and abstract science, and therefore deserves an honorary degree. (Source: azquotes)
When Lagranger saw that he was such a talented woman, he was quite appreciative and became her mentor. German's mathematical attainments also allowed her to establish connections with many world-class scientists, such as the mathematics prince Gauss, Lejeander, etc. German continued to communicate with Gauss under the name Blanc, most famously discussing the work on Fermat's Grand Theorem. Germann's work to prove Fermat's Grand Theorem is today called Germann's Theorem. Her method laid the foundation for the next two hundred years of exploration, and the problem of Fermat's Grand Theorem was finally solved in 1995. During the war, German protected Gauss through relationships, and Gauss realized that German was a woman and believed that she had noble courage, extraordinary talent and outstanding genius.
Germann, who had made achievements in the field of number theory, later turned to the competition question raised by the Paris Academy of Sciences, mathematical theory of elastic surface vibration . In addition to her mentors, the contestants also had great mathematicians such as Poisson, Cauchy, and Laplace. Those who solve this problem will receive the Supreme Honor Academy Award. German submitted papers to the French Academy of Sciences three times, eventually becoming the first woman to win the grand prize. She also became a pioneer of elastic theory.
However, Germann ultimately failed to attend the award ceremony and established the Eiffel Tower and widely used the theory of flexibility, without her name engraved, and she never received a formal position in her life. Gauss once suggested that the University of Göttingen grant her an honorary doctorate, but she died of breast cancer before she was about to receive the honor. The death certificate only left the word "unemployed unmarried woman" and was only 55 years old. France, once a world science center, could only rely on the establishment of the Germann Award to commemorate this amazing female scientist.
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Marquis of the Saudis
Female scientist forgotten by history
Previously, two female scientists with miserable life experiences, they only love science all their lives, and it seems that there is something missing in their personal life. The person I talked about next, her most famous identity may be her lover as a marquis, the great philosopher and writer Voltaire, but her life outside of her emotions was a mathematician and physicist, who brought Newton's theory to France. Regarding the reasons for celestial motion, Newton's theory of universal gravity can defeat Descartes's rotation "ether" theory in France, and she and Voltaire played a key role.
The theory of Newton on the left and Descartes on the right (Source: cosmosmagazine)
The Marquis of Charles (Émilie du Châtelet, 1706-1749) was born in a noble family in Paris. At the age of 18, his parents married their only daughter to an ancient nobleman in eastern France and became the Marquis. After marriage, it is very traditional like other noble women. As a result, at the age of 27, when her second child was about to be born, the Marquis of Chartre suddenly became interested in mathematics and began to read widely, study Newton and Leibniz's works, and also began to learn philosophy. Shatley, who was educated by aristocratic since childhood, seemed not to have learned much mathematics in his early years. Perhaps this is how Daniu was, and he could feel the fun of learning mathematics and physics.
She felt it was difficult to continue studying in depth at home, so she returned to Paris. Because she was born earlier than German, perhaps German imitated her relationship, the Marquis of Chartre was also a group of big bulls who knew, communicated and sought advice. Including Pierre Louis Maupertuis, who proposed the principle of minimal action, Alexis Claude Clairau, a scientist of the Bernoulli family, this great ox who combines mathematics, astronomy and geophysics, proves Newton's theory of the earth being flat. His research on curves at the age of 8 made her an academician of the French Academy of Sciences , which Madame Curie has never received honor in her life.
The Marquis of Saudi Arabia also has many experimental instruments at home and is very hands-on. (Source: JSTOR Daily)
In fact, her work is not unfamiliar to high school students. The kinetic energy we know today is 1/2mv^2. This square was proposed by her, which played a key role in establishing the law of conservation of mechanical energy. In 1737, her paper on fire is considered to predict the properties of infrared radiation today. In 1740, her eldest son was 13 years old and wanted to learn mathematics and physics, but there was no suitable textbook. She wrote a book called "Review on Science and Philosophy", which resulted in this book being awarded to her by the Italian Academy of Sciences. Another book about movement was translated into German and Italian, and Kant, as a professor of mathematics and physics, was also doing related work, and even once made Kant's opponents slander his work as a copy of the Marquis of Satre.
Newton's "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" translated by Charles Lai
The most famous achievement of the Marquis of Charles Lai was her great work "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy". This collection of great works was translated into French by her, and many comments were given, and the content was modified and supplemented. The planetary orbit of Halley's comet can be calculated by the method she gave. Unfortunately, she had already passed away due to pulmonary embolism when her translation was published, but her translation is still considered the standard translation in the French version. The profound mathematical and physical thoughts and methods in the book still make today's scientists have a headache.
Voltaire and Chartre (Source: NPR)
Of course, people are interested in her today mainly because she met Voltaire at the age of 27. In fact, before she met Voltaire, there was a famous young military poet. This smart and beautiful aristocratic woman also attracted rumors, and in Voltaire's writings she is the embodiment of all virtues. Due to political problems, Voltaire went to the Marquis of Saudi Arabia to take refuge in seclusion for 15 years. Naturally, they spent a period of golden years in academics and love. Voltaire's reading of Newton's works is indispensable to the help of the Marquis of Satre, and the story of the apple hitting Newton's head was written by Voltaire.
Chathir's personal emotional life is hard to evaluate. The father of her last child is the lover mentioned earlier...
Her life outside of emotion explains the tolerance of women in that era. She read, researched, wrote, and published, and was recognized in a purely male academic world. However, her work is still forgotten in the long river of history. Now her story with Voltaire has been adapted into various operas, which seems to remind us that the forgetting of women in that era and the importance of discovering her work.
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Emi Nott
is called "the most creative mathematical genius" by Einstein
Finally, we talk about a female scientist who is closer to our era. She died of an infection after surgery on April 14, 1935. In the same year, the New York Times published an article in memory of Einstein, "...the most outstanding and creative mathematical genius since women were educated. In the hard work of the most talented mathematicians in the field of algebra for centuries, she discovered a set of methods, and the growth of modern young mathematicians has proved the great significance of this set. Through her methods, pure mathematics has become a poem of logical thought..." Her name is Emmy Noether (1882-1935).
Not attended a school for women's education in his childhood, but at that time the university did not allow women to attend. (Source: wiki)
Nott was born in the home of a professor of Jewish mathematics. At the age of 21, she entered the University of Göttingen, which is the center of mathematics, and became the only girl in the department of mathematics. Here are top mathematicians Klein, Minkowsky and Hilbert, who studied Einstein's general theory of relativity together. He published many high-level papers when he was a student, and became one of the few female doctoral students in mathematics in the world at the age of 25.In the 1920s, she had been studying the basic work of abstract algebra, engaged in the research of group theory, ring theory, group representation theory and number theory. This prolific mathematician laid a solid axiomatic foundation for abstract algebra , making it officially develop into a modern algebra, and also made people evaluate her as the best female mathematician in history.
36, she proved two basic theorems in general relativity and elementary particle physics, today called Nospecial theorem . This work on the laws of symmetry and conservation is considered to be the birth of the branch of theoretical physics today. Mr. Yang Zhenning once commented on her work that the laws of symmetry and conservation occupies an important position in physics, because when we discuss quantum numbers of atoms or molecules, the concept of quantum numbers comes from the concept of symmetry and now becomes part of the basic language.
But such an accomplished woman did not even have a formal teaching position at that time. Scholars at that time could not accept female professors. "It is a shame for male students to ask female teachers for advice." Hilbert attaches great importance to her talent. Hilbert said: "Gender is not the criterion that determines the selection of teachers, and the university committee is not a bathhouse!" Finally, Nott used Hilbert's name as a teaching assistant to give lectures and showcase her talents.
Fortunately, after the academic community recognized theorem, and Einstein's promotion, she had a "unofficial special professor" position in Göttingen, but she was actually a volunteer professor without a salary. She was only invited to become a visiting professor at Moscow University at the age of 46, and her life was better after that. In fact, she was not only prejudice for being a woman, she was Jewish, Social Democrat and pacifist, and was implicated by the government.
Not long after receiving the famous Ackermann-Teubner Mathematics Award at the Mathematics Conference in Zurich, the Nazis came to power. She was deaf of her ears and was expelled and could only escape overseas. At this time, the director of the Göttingen Mathematics Institute was the mathematician and physicist H. Weyl. If the research on Weyl fermions in the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015 was selected for the top ten breakthroughs of that year, it was that Weyl. This arrogant genius had no respect for any person. He tried his best to keep Nott, but Nott still left Germany and came to the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies in the United States, where she became Einstein's colleague.
"The most creative mathematical genius since women were educated" - Einstein (Source: GramUnion)
No one would have thought of such an ordinary-looking woman, one of the best mathematicians in history. (Source: CRC)
Nott's lifelong unmarried, because of her helpfulness, infectious voice and unique teaching thinking, she attracted a large number of students, who are called "Nott's son". She likes to go out for hiking with them, and what attracts her is not the scenery on the road, but the mathematics discussed in the process. "Wearing thick glasses and dark clothes, what she never leaves is a watch, a pin and a necklace. Because she suffers from uterine fibroids and has a big belly like a pregnant woman, her image is not so glorious."
In the end, she died of an infection after undergoing surgery. She, who could have continued to contribute, died. Today, people miss this great man in various ways. In the fields of mathematics and physics, more than a dozen nouns with Nott are the most precious wealth she leaves to us.
Reference:
2. Kong Guoping. Hippatia--The earliest female scientist in human history [J]. Dialectics of Nature, 1996(5):58-66.
3. Nie Jiansong. The Death of Ancient Egyptian Beauty Scientist Hippatia[J]. World Culture, 2017(10).
4. Tu Xingpei. Sophie German: Mathematics "Mulan" [J]. Chinese Science and Technology Awards, 2017(6):77-79.
5. Kong Guoping. German-Excellent Woman in the History of French Science [J]. Dialectics of Nature, 2002, 24(4):60-66.
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