Can you name one great female mathematician or physicist or computer scientist or w/e?

Question

Don’t tell me that Einstein’s theories were invented by his wife/wives.

besides, curie. also ne mathematicians?

Answer 1

Computer scientist: Cynthia Breazeal, Robot Designer. (Steven Speilberg needed an expert to consult for his AI film, and she was the one he spoke with.)

Physicist: Shirley Ann Jackson, Particle Physicist (1st African-American women to receive a Ph.D from MIT)

Mathematician: Inez Fung, Climate Scientist, she creates math models. (She was the second woman to get a Ph.D from MIT in Meteorology).

Answer 2

Mathematician (ancient times): Hypatia of Alexandria was the salaried head of the Neoplatonic School in Alexandria from about 400 CE and invented the plane astrolabe and (working with a student) the graduated brass hydrometer and the hydroscope. Assassinated for being uppity.

Mathematician (modern times): Emmy Noether, whose work on ring theory and ideals was foundational in abstract algebra and who went on to establish the connection between symmetries and conservation laws, which has been described as one of the great discoveries of 20th century physics.

Physicist: Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Nobel Prize Winner in the field of Physics, for discoveries in the field of nuclear shell structure.

Computer: Ada Lovelace, mathematician and scientist, who, in 1853, became the first person to record the concept of computer software. Initially forced to publish her work anonymously because she was a woman, it was later republished and she was honoured posthumously by the US Department of Defence.

Five minutes on the internet.

Not hard when you look.

Cheers :-)

Answer 3

First, my favorite (I've met her) though she's not a physicist:

Candace Pert, in biochemistry, discovered neuropeptides, which made possible, among other things, the anti-depressant drugs called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (Prozac, Paxil, et al), explain the "runner's high", and explain some of the chemistry of sex, love, and bonding.

Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace, who programmed the first (mechanical) computer, invented by Charles Babbage.

Christine Ladd-Franklin, mathematician and logician whose contributions to symbolic logic contributed to electronic circuit design.

Phyllis S. Freier, who made several key discoveries about cosmic rays.

Oh, you asked for one.


EDIT

I'd like to add that I am saddened to see so few answers. What are Women's Studies classes teaching? I could name dozens of women in physics alone, many prior to Second Wave feminism (where women in physics really started to grow).


EDIT

For future reference, I used Google and found a couple of handy websites:

http://www.agnesscott.edu/Lriddle/women/women.htm
http://cwp.library.ucla.edu/

Answer 4

Marie Curie.

Answer 5

Marie Curie, ever hear of her? She kind of won a few Nobels for science... Just because not a lot of women in the past were able or willing to do work in the sciences has nothing to do with their ability to do so.

Answer 6

Just a note for the Marie Curie answerers: She had half a Nobel prize, it was shared with Pierre Curie and their work was a collaboration.

Answer 7

How about the women who made great contributions to the field of computer science such as Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace?

Answer 8

here's my contributation~~


Amelia Earhart
May 22, 1844 – June 14, 1926
American

She was an American aviator and noted early female pilot who set her first women's record by rising to an altitude of 14,000 feet. She later joined two pilots on the famous trans-Atlantic flight from Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland on June 17, 1928, arriving at Burry Port, Wales, approximately 21 hours later to make headlines worldwide. On May 20, 1932, she made her own transcontinental flight from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to Paris, but was forced to land in a pasture near Londonderry, Ireland. President Herbert Hoover presented Earhart with a gold medal from the National Geographic Society. Congress awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross-the first ever given to a woman. Earhart felt the flight proved that men and women were equal in "jobs requiring intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness and willpower." On January 11, 1935, she became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific from Honolulu to Oakland, California. In 1937, nearing her 40th birthday, Earhart was ready to attempt being the first woman to fly around the world. On June 1st, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan departed from Miami and began the 29,000-mile journey. At 8:45 Earhart reported, "We are running north and south." Nothing further was heard from Earhart as they mysteriously disappeared. Earhart will be remembered for her courage, vision, and groundbreaking achievements, both in aviation and for women. In a letter to her husband, written in case a dangerous flight proved to be her last, this brave spirit was evident. "Please know I am quite aware of the hazards," she said. "I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others."

from page: http://www.villanova.edu/artsci/womensstudies/resources/famouswomen.htm

Caroline Herschel
March 16, 1750 - January 9, 1848
German-born; English

She was a mathematician and astronomer who worked with her brother, William Herschel, the court appointed astronomer to King George III. While working with her brother, she helped to discover the planet Uranus in 1781. She also is credited with discovering a comet, making her the first woman known to have done so. The comet, 35P/Herschel-Rigollet, bears her name. She later published her own work cataloguing stars and nebulae.

from the same page

Sally Ride
May 26, 1951
American

She joined NASA in 1978 as part of the first astronaut class to accept women. On June 18, 1983 she became the first American woman in space as a crewmember on Space Shuttle Challenger for STS-7. She is also the first woman to complete two space flights. In 1987, Ride left to work at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control. In 1989, she became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego and Director of the California Space Institute. In 2003, she was asked to serve on the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Ride is the only person to serve on both of the panels investigating Shuttle accidents (those for the Challenger explosion and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster). She is currently on leave from the university and is the President and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company that creates entertaining science programs and publications for upper elementary and middle school students, with a particular focus on girls. Ride has long been an advocate for improved science education and has written several children's books about space exploration, including The Third Planet, Exploring Earth from Space, To Space and Back, Voyager, and The Mystery of Mars.


also from the same page



here i have named Amelia Earhart, Caroline Herschel and Sally Ride.

your past questions seemed fair but know they seem sexist.....

i understand where you're coming from but then i could go onto to ask things like why do some men mock women that do things that they consider "a man's hobby or job"
why? i ask why?

be fair okay...?

Answer 9

sorry .. for most of our history we were denied an education Past HOW TO COOK and PAINT AND DO TAPESTRY.. or forced to stay at home and raise our families...

**rolling eyes innocently**

I find your question not worthy of a decent answer as it wreaks of arrogance