Agnes Pockels

Agnes Luise Wilhelmine Pockels (February 14 1862 in Venice, Italy, – 1935), was a German pioneer in chemistry.

Biography

In 1862, she was born in Venice, Italy. Her father served in the Austrian army. (Note: In 1862, Venice, Italy, was under Austrian rule. The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861 but Venice remained under Austrian rule. After the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866, the Austrian army left. From 1866 onwards, Venice is part of Italy.) When he fell sick with malaria, the family moved to Brunswick, Lower Saxony in 1871. (Note: In 1871, Brunswick was part of the newly formed German Empire, which was born in 1871. Thus she was considered a German chemist. Now Brunswick is still part of Germany.) Already as a child, Agnes was interested in science and would have liked to study physics. In those days, however, women had no access to universities. It was only through her younger brother Friedrich Carl Alwin Pockels, who then studied at the famous University of Göttingen, that she gained access to scientific literature. (Note: Her younger brother, Friedrich Carl Alwin Pockels was also a famous scientist by himself; he is known for the Pockels effect.)

Legend has it that doing the dishes in her own kitchen Agnes discovered the influence of impurities on the surface tension of fluids. To measure the tension she developed the Pockels trough, precursor to the Langmuir scale, and published the first stearine acid.

In 1891, with the help of Lord Rayleigh, she managed to publish her first paper "Surface Tension" in the prestigious journal "Nature". (Please see reference.) In 1931 she received, together with Henri Devaux, the Laura Leonard award from the Colloid Society. In the following year (1932) the Technische Hochschule Braunschweig (English translation: Technical University at Brunswick) granted her an honorary PhD degree. Charles Tanford devoted one chapter to Agnes Pockels in one of his books, as shown in the reference list.

For her whole life, she did not have a formal appointment. She did not marry and remained single for her whole life.

References

*Agnes Pockels, “Surface tension”, Nature, vol. 43, pp. 437-439 (1891).
*C.H. Giles and S.D. Forrester, "The origins of the surface film balance: Studies in the early history of surface chemistry, part 3", Chemistry and Industry, pp. 43-53 (9 January 1971). (Note: This article contains one of the most detailed story on Agnes Pockels, including photos on her and her family.)
*M. Elizabeth Derrick, "Agnes Pockels, 1862-1935", Journal of Chemical Education, vol. 59, no. 12, pp. 1030-1031 (Dec. 1982).
*Charles Tanford, "Ben Franklin stilled the waves: An informal history of pouring oil on water with reflections on the ups and downs of scientific life in general", Oxford University Press, 2004, Chapter 11.
* Gary Williams (2006), "Agnes Pockels" in [http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521821971 "OUT OF THE SHADOWS: Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics"] , Nina Byers and Gary Williams, ed., Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography

*Andrea Kruse and Sonja M. Schwarzl: "Zum Beispiel Agnes Pockels." In: "Nachrichten aus der Chemie", 06, 2002.

External links

* Agnes Pockels in [http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~cwp/Phase2/Pockels,[e-mail] CWP at UCLA]
* [http://www.ifdn.tu-bs.de/chemiedidaktik/agnespockelslabor/agnes.html Bio in German]