24 03
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The women scientists who changed history

WOMAN AND SCIENCE, TWO TERMS RARELY UNITED

Women of science have been, in most cases, invisible women, and condemned to oblivion. And it is that the female presence in science has been questioned, reviled and denied since the beginning of time. Today, the number of women in the university exceeds that of men but the distribution is quite uneven in the different disciplines. And the women who venture to pursue a scientific career finish it very rarely. Apart from this, the objective of this article is not to analyze these aspects but to highlight the role of women in the history of science and to verify that the presence of women in scientific fields is no longer a rarity, despite the fact that she continues without reaching the managerial and power positions of her male colleagues.

In our newspaper library section we have dedicated two articles to scientific paths, coinciding with their anniversary, Ada Lovelace, 'mother' of computing, and Rosalind Franklin, ignored discoverer of DNA

Today, on the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we also offer our readers a selection of women who have excelled in various fields of science from its dawn to the present.

THE FORERUNNERS:

The oldest known scientist:

Tapputi-Belatekallim, made perfumes around 1200 B.C. Behind her, the figure of Hypatia of Alexandria emerges, the Greek mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who paid with her life for the quality of her knowledge.

Maria Sybilla (1647-1717)

A renowned Dutch naturalist and entomologist. At the age of 52, in 1699, she obtained permission to travel to Suriname together with her young daughter, in order to exhaustively document plant life and, above all, that of arthropods, becoming the first adventurer to cross the ocean. .

Caroline Herschel (1750-1848)

German astronomer, of extraordinary beauty, it is said that a love disappointment pushed her to study. A brilliant scientist, she discovered eight comets, and was a co-inventor of the Herschel telescope.

Émilie du Châtelet (1706-1949)

Known for being Newton's translator and Voltaire's lover, she was the most important female figure in physics during the Age of Enlightenment in early 18th-century France. Mathematician, physicist and philosopher, Émilie is recognized for being the French translator of Newton's Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica, a translation that is still used to date by French-speakers who want to know the ideas of the English scientist.

Known for being Newton's translator and Voltaire's lover, she was the most important female figure in physics during the Age of Enlightenment in early 18th-century France. Mathematician, physicist and philosopher, Émilie is recognized for being the French translator of Newton's Philosophiæ naturalisprincipia mathematica, a translation that is still used to date by French-speakers who want to know the ideas of the English scientist.

MADE IN HOLLYWOOD

Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000) The first actress to appear nude on the big screen, dubbed 'the most beautiful woman in the world' was not just a facade. The beauty was inside her…in her head. Hedy studied engineering before debuting in Hollywood and had weapons knowledge, which led him to investigate and co-invent, together with composer Georges Antheil, the radio frequency wave retransmission system, key for sending data on the

handling and launching of torpedoes from allied submarines in World War II.

The women scientists who changed history

SPAIN ALSO EXISTS

Teaching marks the trajectory of women scientists in our country and it was a woman, Beatriz Galindo, who was selected by Isabel la Católica to educate her children, the future monarchs. After her, there have been many women who have stood out in the scientific curriculum of our country. Based on the fact that it was not until after 1888 that women were allowed access to the university, Spanish women have shown that science is not a preserve for men.

-Beatriz Galindo (1465-1534) Latinist and educator at the court of Isabella of Castilla, she was the tutor of the children of the Catholic kings, studied theology and medicine and wrote poetry in Latin. As a curiosity, we point out that the Madrid neighborhood of La Latina owes its name to her figure.

-María Andrea Casamayor (?-1780) Mathematician from Zaragoza, continues to be unknown despite the fact that Tirocinio Aritmético is her only work, a book focused on disseminating the basic rules of mathematics to the population in which she warns your interest that it has an application in daily life and business.

-María de Maetzu (1881-1948) 'The old saying is true that the letter with blood enters, but it must not be with the child's, but with the teacher'. promoter of pedagogy in our country, this maxim summarizes her good didactic work. María dedicated her entire life to achieving equality between women and men through education. She was one of the most prepared women of her time and revolutionized the Spanish educational system of the 20th century. Exiled in Argentina, she died in Buenos Aires in 1948.

- María Antonia Zorraquino Zorraquino (1904-1993) Chemistry. She obtained the degree of doctor at the Zaragoza Faculty of Sciences in 1930, being the only woman among twenty-three men in her class. His work was developed at the Biochemical Research Laboratory under the direction of Gregorio Rocasolano. The title of his thesis was Investigations on stability and electric charge of colloids. After her marriage to Professor Juan Martín Sauras, a professor at the University of Zaragoza, she had to leave the Chemistry Laboratory where she worked.

-Margarita Salas (1938) Renowned biochemist whose life is dedicated to research in her laboratory at the Center for Molecular Biology - Severo Ochoa of the Autonomous University of Madrid/CSIC. A disciple of Severo Ochoa, with whom he worked in the United States, she was commissioned by the Luarqués Nobel Prize winner, together with her husband, the scientist Eladio Viñuela, to promote Spanish research in the field of biochemistry and molecular biology.