- Harriet Brooks
Infobox Scientist
name = Harriet Brooks
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caption = Harriet Brooks
birth_date =January 1 ,1876
birth_place = Exeter,Ontario
death_date =April 17 ,1933
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nationality =Canada
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field =nuclear physics
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doctoral_advisor =Ernest Rutherford
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known_for =radioactivity
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Harriet Brooks (January 1 ,1876 -April 17 ,1933 ) was the firstCanadian womannuclear physicist . She is most famous for her research on nuclear transmutations andradioactivity .Ernest Rutherford , who guided her graduate work, regarded her as being next toMarie Curie in the calibre of her aptitude.She was born in Exeter,
Ontario onNew Year's Day , 1876. She graduated with B.A. inmathematics andnatural philosophy fromMcGill University in 1898.She was the first graduate student of
Ernest Rutherford (then professor at McGill University), under whom she worked immediately after graduating. With him she worked onElectricity andMagnetism for her Master's degree in 1901. She was the first ever woman at McGill to receive a Master's degree.After her Master's again under Rutherford she also did a series of experiments to determine the nature of the radioactive emissions from
thorium . These experiments served as the foundation for the development ofnuclear science .She was among the first persons to discover radon and to try to determine its
atomic mass .For a brief period she also worked under the supervision of
Marie Curie .In 1907 she married Frank Pitcher and left the field of
physics since in those days it was mandatory in universities for any woman to resign from her job after getting married.An obituary for Harriet Brooks was published by the New York Times on April 18, 1933, recording that she had died the previous day in Montreal at the age of 56, crediting her as the "Discoverer of the Recoil of Radioactive Atom." Brooks is considered one of the leading women of her time in the field of nuclear physics, second only to
Marie Curie .References
Further reading
*"Harriet Brooks: Pioneer Nuclear Scientist" by Marelene F. Rayner-Canham, Geoffrey W. Rayner-Canham (ISBN 0-7735-1254-3)
External links
* [http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~cwp/Phase2/Brooks,_Harriet@842580299.html Article at UCLA]
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