Cotton gin "The First Cotton Gin", an engraving from Harper's Magazine, 1869. This carving depicts a roller gin, which preceded Eli Whitney's invention.[1] A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, allowing for much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.[2] The fibers are processed into clothing or other cotton goods, and any undamaged seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil and meal. Although simple handheld roller gins have been used in India and other countries since at least 500 AD,[3] the first modern mechanical cotton gin was created by American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793, and patented in 1794. It used a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through, while brushes continuously removed the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. History Rationale Early cotton gins Between the 12th and 14th centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in India and China. Eli Whitney's patent References
Happy Ada Lovelace Day! | Belle Jar The ‘Enchantress of Numbers’ herself Heard of Ada Lovelace? Of the dozen or more people I’ve quizzed on this over the past few days, only two knew the name and neither could say exactly who she was or what she was famous for. Upon being informed that she is widely considered to be the world’s first computer programmer, all were surprised… Here follows a quick crib sheet on the lady herself: Augusta Ada King (née Byron), born in 1815, was actually the daughter of Lord Byron, although she never knew him as he died when she was eight months old. Young Ada was always fascinated by machines and adored mathematics, science and logic and was mentored by Mary Sommerville, another brilliant female mathematician. This is only the briefest of brief delves into the life of a fascinating figure who continues to inspire women and girls in the fields of maths and science to this day. Happy Ada Lovelace Day, one and all! Like this: Like Loading...
A Secret History Of Women In Science, From Marie Curie To Florence Nightingale “This is not the run-of-the-mill stuff you can find at a library,” curator Ronald Smeltzer says. But the exhibit doesn’t just focus on the scientific discoveries of the female scientists. There’s plenty of artifacts that add a biographical dimension to some of the famous (and not-so-famous) names. “We were trying to embed the human interest story in the scientific life,” Smeltzer says. Whether you’re looking to further explore the work of a female scientist you already know about, or ready to discover a totally new researcher, the exhibit has something to offer. Florence Nightingale, Passionate Statistician What do you think of when you hear the name “Florence Nightingale?” Actually, one of Nightingale’s greatest legacies is related to math. The number of soldier deaths in the Crimean War attributed to enemy fire is in red; the number of deaths attributed to disease is in green. courtesy Ronald Smeltzer On a tour of America, Curie gifted the machine to the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.
Invisible women of science – now appearing at the Royal Society | Uta Frith | Science Women in science have an image problem. It is not so much deciding whether they should aspire to the hard image of being a scientist or the soft image of being feminine, it is the more serious problem of invisibility. Nowhere is this more obvious than in our august institutions, our imposing portrait galleries and grand museums. There is a dearth of dignified portraits of women scientists produced by distinguished artists. There are historical reasons for this. In the Royal Society's buildings there are many portraits of great scientists, mainly donated, and many portraits of past presidents, usually commissioned. Preparing for this exhibition made it strikingly clear that there is a void in representations of women in science. Perhaps the time has come to take some steps towards a change. Garry Kennard is an artist who has long been making links between science and art. What does science say? Previous work suggested that men would speak longer than women in this sort of situation.
Forgotten women of science win recognition online | Science By late afternoon scores of red women on Sam Haskell's list had turned blue: female scientists, some dead and some living, many immensely distinguished, some geniuses, but whose names have almost been forgotten even by their peers. Up the grand marble staircase of the Royal Society in London, under the imposing gold and white library ceiling, women and a handful of men had gathered, joined by many more online across the world, to correct a gross injustice. The list gradually changing colour on Haskell's screen represented hundreds of women scientists who have either never had a Wikipedia entry, or whose lives and work are dismissed in a stub a few lines long. The event in London was booked out for weeks, but many more joined online, some starting work days ago. "It is shameful that when you ask people, including scientists, to name well-known female scientists and engineers, they can barely get past Marie Curie," she said. Other stubs were expanded. "Well honestly!"
Finding Ada — Bringing women in technology to the fore This Brilliant Female Physicist Was Overlooked for a Nobel Prize History is full of household names … the Roosevelts, the Kennedys — you know, those familiar names from textbooks. But often if you dig a little deeper, the most moving stories involve names still in relative obscurity. Chien-Shiung Wu is a perfect example. Born in 1912, Wu was raised in a small town in Taicang, China. Her father was an advocate for girls’ education and had founded a women’s school in China. During World War II, Wu worked on the Manhattan Project at Columbia University. In 1956, Wu devised an experiment with revolutionary results. Wu’s work was termed the most important development in the field of atomic and nuclear physics to date; a 1959 AAUW press release called her experiment the “solution to the number-one riddle of atomic and nuclear physics.” The October 1959 “AAUW Journal” article announcing Wu’s Achievement Award Despite the obvious omission, Wu received many accolades for her work.
Women Nobel Prize Winners: 16 Women Who Defied Odds To Win Science's Top Award (PHOTOS) Women make up a bit more than half of the world’s population, yet even in the most developed countries, men hold the lion's share of jobs in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. What's more, men take home most of the prestigious scientific awards. That includes the Nobel Prizes, widely considered the ultimate mark of scientific achievement. Of the 357 people awarded a Nobel in the science categories — Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, and Economic Sciences — only 16 have been women (see slideshow below). What accounts for this discrepancy? "This low representation is likely due to there unfortunately being very few women scientists in the first half of the 20th Century," Dr. Until the 1970s the number of women who received Nobel Prizes was roughly proportional to the number of women doing scientific research — a small group of women winning a small number of Nobels. Check out our list below of the 16 women who have won a Nobel Prize in science.
Marie Curie Mixed Science and Sex, And 9 Other Surprising Facts About Famous Chemist Happy Birthday, Madame Curie! Marie Curie was born this day in 1867. You might know her as a pioneering chemist and physicist -- the first woman in Europe to receive a Ph.D. in physics. She was also the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for her research in radioactivity, and the first person ever to win two Nobels. But have you heard about what she did to help during World War I? Who was the real Marie Curie, and what was she like? FACT #1. Marie Curie at age 16. FACT #2. Ms. FACT #3. FACT #4. In a love letter to Marie, Pierre wrote: It would, nevertheless, be a beautiful thing in which I hardly dare believe, to pass through life together hypnotized in our dreams: your dream for your country; our dream for humanity; our dream for science. The two were married in the summer of 1895. Pierre and Marie Curie in the laboratory. FACT #5. Marie Curie in a "Petite Curie," a mobile X-ray vehicle. FACT #6. Marie Curie with Albert Einstein. FACT #7. FACT #8. She disregarded the warning, stating simply:
How the “Most Beautiful Woman in the World” Invented a System for Remote-Controlling Torpedoes by Michelle Legro “When you talk to a sympathetic mind about technology, gender, age and experience disappear completely.” In 1937, the dinner table of Fritz Mandl — an arms dealer who sold to both sides during the Spanish Civil War and the third richest man in Austria — entertained high-ranking Nazi officials who chatted about the newest munitions technologies. Hedy Kiestler, whose parents were assimilated Jews, and who would be rechristened one year later by Louis B. Richard Rhodes’s fascinating new book Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, explores a golden age of creativity among artists in Europe and America, whose job was to entertain but who were inclined to something more, and the war’s effect on these brilliant, frustrated exiles. An MGM studio portrait of Hedy Lamarr, 1938 Composer George Antheil during the 1920s in Paris, when he was living above the newly founded Shakespeare & Co with his wife. Ed.
Pioneering 19th-Century Astronomer Maria Mitchell on Education and Women in Science by Maria Popova “No woman should say, ‘I am but a woman!’ But a woman! What more can you ask to be?” “We are women studying together,” legendary astronomer and reconstructionist Maria Mitchell said to the senior class in astronomy when it entered upon its last year at Vassar College in 1876, where Mitchell had begun teaching after the Civil War as the only woman on the faculty. Maria Mitchell. To get an idea of just how radical the notion of women’s education was in the era’s cultural context, here is an anecdote, equal parts amusing and appalling, that Mitchell relays about one particularly anxious mother who placed her daughter in the astronomer’s care at Vassar: One lady, who seemed to be a bright woman, got me by the button and held me a long time—she wanted this, that, and the other impracticable thing for the girl, and told me how honest her daughter was; then with a flood of tears she said, ‘But she is not a Christian. Meeting Dr. ‘The Glasgow College for Girls.’ St.