These women made discoveries that literally turned the scientific world.
1. Hedi Lamarr
The film actress Hedy Lamarr is still extolled as "the most beautiful woman in the world", but her main achievement is the project "The Secret Communication System". It was this technology that the military used to remote control torpedoes during the Second World War. "Secret communication system" is still actively used in cellular and wireless networks.
2. Ada Lovelace
Countess Lovelace is called the world's first programmer. In 1843, Ada wrote a program to solve specific mathematical problems for a machine that was created later. She also predicted that computers can not only calculate algebraic formulas, but also create musical works.
3. Grace Hopper
A century after Ada Lovelace, Rear Admiral Grace Hopper programmed on one of the first computers of the time - Mark 1. She also invented the first compiler - an English computer translator. In addition, the granny COBOL developed a system for identifying computer errors after a short circuit to Mark II destroyed her many hours of work.
4. Stephanie Kwolek
From bulletproof vests to fiber optic cables - for all this you can thank the talented chemist Stephanie Kwolek. After all, it was she who invented the Kevlar fabric, which is five times stronger than steel and has excellent fireproof properties.
5. Annie Easley
When in the distant 1955 Annie started working at NASA, she did not even have a higher education. But the lack of a diploma did not prevent her from creating programs for measuring solar winds, optimizing energy conversion and controlling missile accelerators.
6. Marie Sklodowska-Curie
Even in those times far from feminism, the work of the talented chemist and physicist Marie Curie was highly appreciated by the scientific community, and her innovative projects on radioactivity were won by two Nobel Prizes in 1903 and 1911. She was the first woman to receive the famous Nobel Prize.
7. Maria Telkes
She did not have enough solar ovens and wind conditioners, so Maria Telkes created a solar battery system, which is still in active use. In the 1940s, Maria helped build the first houses with solar heating, where comfort temperature was maintained even in the harsh conditions of the cold winter of Massachusetts.
8. Dorothy Crowfoot-Hodgkin
Dorothy Crowfoot-Hodgkin is known as the creator of protein crystallography. She with the help of X-rays performed an analysis of the structure of penicillin, insulin and vitamin B12. In 1964, for these studies, Dorothy received the well-deserved Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
9. Catherine Blodgett
Miss Blodgett was the first woman to receive a degree in physics from Cambridge. And in 1938, Catherine invented anti-reflective glass. This invention is still widely used in cameras, glasses, telescopes, photographic lenses and other optical equipment. If you wear glasses, then you have something to thank Kathryn Blodgett for.
10. Ida Henrietta Hyde
A talented physiologist, Ida Hyde invented a microelectrode that is capable of stimulating an individual tissue cell. This discovery has turned the world of neurophysiology. In 1902, she became the first female member of the American Physiological Society.
11. Virginia Apgar
Every woman is familiar with this name. It is on the Apgar health scale that the state of newborns is still evaluated. Doctors-neonatologists believe that in the 20th century Virginia Apgar did more to improve the health of mothers and babies than anyone else.