What On Earth Is The Universe Made Of?
When it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen. And no one seems to question how we know. Let your curiosity be aroused.
I found this little quote today. Far from it being comforting, instead it led me to believe I have personally suffered on two counts:
- not having a noble, and meaningful science education
- and having lived with a significant mental bypass in natural curiosity
It further cemented in my mind that I’ve been short-changed in areas of my life. ‘Science is simply common sense at its best.’
This is not to suggest that I am not curious, but more that my science education was sparse and my natural curiosity, stunted.
But in fairness to myself, I take nothing for granted, and am grateful that there are many people who have crossed frontiers of discovery and provided souls such as mine, a lifestyle that I do not take for granted.
Still, the other day I came across an article regarding female scientists who have not enjoyed the acclaim that should have been theirs, and I wondered if I was the only person feeling a little short-changed.
So…let’s start with a little test. What are the following scientists renowned for?
- Isaac Newton
- Charles Darwin
- Albert Einstein
- Alexander Graham Bell
The answers are: gravity, evolution, relativity of time, and the telephone, all in that order.
Note that we have four men on the list, which is deliberate on my part, because, for the most part, it is men who have become acclaimed scientists.
That’s not to say there are no high-flying female scientists. There are, but they are fewer in number.
Why is that, do you think?
Is it because women are expected to become mothers, and so aren’t regarded as worthy of money being spent on their education?
Do women tend not to use the same effusive language in their research, as compared to male scientists, and are consequently overlooked?
Are they conflicted between motherhood and career?
Do they wonder if they might ever fit into ‘the club’ that certainly once existed?
‘Scientific career opportunities saw a boost during the First World War as a result of the realignment of science to the military. For the first time, scientists worked on problems ranging from aviation and submarine detection to chemical warfare. After the war, this expansion continued, particularly in industry. Biochemist Kathleen Culhane Lathbury was one female scientist who benefited from that. During the 1920s and early 1930s, she worked for British Drug Houses, one of the leading pharmaceutical firms in the United Kingdom. In her post, Lathbury oversaw insulin manufacturing.’
But here is yet another conflict, an exclusion that was not addressed. The dining room assigned to the scientists at work, by the drug companies, was exclusive for males. That’s where the social interaction took place, and perhaps the sharing of ideas and opinions…and maybe sexist jokes. Who knows?
Can you imagine how Lathbury felt? This kind of exclusion has happened for many women in different facets of life, but there was an opportunity to right a wrong in this case, and it was missed.
And why did no other scientist suggest a massage of the rules? These days nobody would see that as fair.
Later on in her career, ‘In notes for a talk that she gave on women in the chemical industry, Lathbury said that the male graduate “is usually given quite a dignified position from the beginning. The girl who worked side by side with him at the university is hard up and constantly humiliated … Even if her work is intellectually satisfying, she will be expected to attain results from the ground floor for which her male equivalent is given the help of a little altitude.”’
So imagine that. You want to be a scientist, but you’re a woman, and the doors have been somewhat reluctantly opened for you.
Let’s check out another female scientist of the 70s.
It was 1969, and Margaret Rossiter, was one of the few women enrolled in a graduate program at Yale University in Connecticut. A quiet force to be reckoned with, each Friday she ‘made a point of attending a regular informal gathering of her department’s professors and fellow students. Usually, at those late afternoon meetings, there was beer-drinking, which Rossiter did not mind, but also pipe-smoking, which she did, and joke-making, which she might have enjoyed except that the brand of humor generally escaped her. Even so, she kept showing up, fighting to feel accepted in a mostly male enclave, fearful of being written off in absentia.’
Rossitor was on a mission, and though never really felt comfortable in the group, she was nonetheless determined to show up, and not shut up.
On one occasion she asked if there had ever been any female scientists. The answer, surprise, surprise was in the negative, and that, believe it or not included Polish-born Marie Curie, who, according to the male scientists, inferred she had just been helping her husband out.
How does one ever keep one’s counsel in such situations? It takes a brave and determined soul to keep going.
But perhaps the derision was meant to be, for it became the catalyst for Rossitor’s life’s work.
It’s been a long and arduous journey for her but at least she has earned recognition for her work, and sought to earn the same validation for many women scientists who might never ever have been recognized.
But for the purpose of this discussion, let’s go back to my initial question about the composition of the universe. We now know that ‘the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen.’
And that could have gone on for a very long time, but for the determination of Dr. Jeremy R. Knowles, to gain recognition for one scientist, Cecilia Payne.
Dr. Knowles, long passed, railed at ‘the complete lack of recognition Cecilia Payne gets’, for her revolutionary discovery, ‘and when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know.”
So in the interests of righting the wrongs done to female scientists throughout history, let me tell you about this amazing woman.
For whatever reasons, possibly financial, Cecilia Payne’s mother was reluctant to fund her daughter’s college education. Undaunted, Cecilia knuckled down, and won a scholarship instead, to Cambridge University, where, despite completing her studies, was not awarded her degree.
Because she was female?
With that she took her bat and ball and crossed the sea to the United States, eventually attaining a PhD in astronomy, at Radcliffe College, with what Otto Struve, a fellow Russian astronomer called, “the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy.”
But it gets better.
‘Not only did Cecilia Payne discover what the universe is made of, she also discovered what the sun is made of (Henry Norris Russell, a fellow astronomer, is usually given credit for discovering that the sun’s composition is different from the Earth’s, but he came to his conclusions four years later than Payne — after telling her not to publish).
‘Cecilia Payne is the reason we know basically anything about variable stars (stars whose brightness as seen from earth fluctuates). Literally every other study on variable stars is based on her work.
‘Cecilia Payne was the first woman to be promoted to full professor from within Harvard, and is often credited with breaking the glass ceiling for women in the Harvard science department and in astronomy, as well as inspiring entire generations of women to take up science.’
Cecilia Payne, was a brilliant scientist, and a name we women should drop into a conversation where appropriate. In my case I should be careful, because with my stinted scientific background I probably would short-change her.
Still, she is a woman to be lauded, and I will leave my readers to take up the slack, both for her, and me!
