Web site honors pioneer
women physicists
BY CYNTHIA LEE
UCLA Today Staff
After reviewing more than 1,000 Web sites, the editors of Scientific
American.com have chosen a UCLA Web site that documents the little-known
contributions of 20th-century women to physics as one of the 50
best science and technology Web sites of 2004.
The site, created by UCLA physicist and Professor Emeritus Nina
Byers, is one of the few sources where readers can learn about 83
female pioneers, many of whose achievements went unsung or were
buried in the pages of obscure technical journals.
Profiled on Byers’ “20th-Century Women in Physics”
site (http://cwp.library.ucla.edu)
is Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958), who, although not as famous as
Watson and Crick, made important advances that led to the discovery
of the helical structure of DNA.
Byers also lets these scientists convey their frustration in their
own words. She quotes Denmark’s great geophysicist Inge Lehmann
as saying: “You should know how many incompetent men I had
to compete with — in vain!” Notable physicist Chien
Shiung Wu said: “There is only one thing worse than coming
home from the lab to a sink full of dirty dishes, and that is not
going to the lab at all!”
When Byers began the project in 1995 as part of the American Physical
Society’s celebration of its centenary of physics, she assumed
she’d find perhaps 20 women to cite. By scouring libraries
and archives, she, her students and colleagues at UCLA and worldwide
identified 83 brilliant women who worked within Byers’ timeframe,
the first 75 years of the 20th century.
To the pages of profiles, Byers added an overview on the state
of women’s education in England and the United States between
1600 and 1900. “Not only were women denied higher education,
but those who could obtain it on their own were excluded from participation
in scientific societies,” she explained.
The site has elicited much feedback from fellow physicists, as
well as historians and teachers. “It has changed the general
perception of physicists who were formerly thought to be only men,”
she said. “People now have a more balanced view of who physicists
are — both men and women.”
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