Somewhat beauty and poetry

It’s Ada Lovelace Day, the single day out of 365 that we devote to honoring women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In the past, I’ve written about the architect Julia Morgan, engineer Beatrice Shilling, physicist Joan Strothers Curran, Nobel Laureate for physiology Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, computer scientist Grace Hopper, radio frequency pioneer Hedy Lamarr and chemist Marie M. Daly. Among others.

This year, I’m shooting for the stars. In particular, astronomer Maria Mitchell, whose Quaker family believed girls had the same right to pursue their passions as boys.

One of seven children, Mitchell was born on Nantucket Island in 1818. She started her own school at age 17, where she accepted any child, regardless of race or gender.

On 1 October, 1847, she discovered Comet 1847 VI, which came to be known as Miss Mitchell’s Comet. There were other female astronomers around, both in the US and Europe, but her discovery raised the stock of New World astronomy among scientists in the Old World. It also brought her celebrity, which she used as a platform to enable other women to pursue their dreams.

Although she didn’t hold a degree, in 1865 Mitchell was the first professor appointed to the faculty of astronomy at Vassar College. Under her leadership and through her inspiration, Vassar enrolled more mathematicians and astronomers than Harvard from 1865 to 1888. Her students and she began photographing sunspots in 1873, the first photos of the sun. This allowed her to explore the hypothesis that sunspots were cavities on the sun’s surface, not clouds. (As it turns out, they aren’t. They’re regions of lower surface temperature caused by magnetic field flux.)

Despite the international reputation that Mitchell brought to Vassar, the college paid her and a female colleague lower salaries than younger male professors. Mitchell and Alida Avery persuaded the administration to give them parity.

One of the things she said that resonates with me is, "We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry."

Mitchell retired from Vassar in 1888, and died a year later. She left a legacy of scientific achievement, intellectual curiosity and moral strength that everyone can admire.