Many of the great advances in the science and technology sector have the signature of a woman. Historically, entrepreneurship and research have been sectors where the male presence has predominated, but when women gradually joined the world of work, things changed. Today many of the great personalities in the industry are women, and their entrepreneurship and ingenuity is present in both technological devices such as medicines that you probably use daily.
In this article we will compile some of the most influential women in the sector, who have been the creators of truly revolutionary theories, products or processes. We will not frame them in any particular order, neither chronological nor of influence, but they are historical personalities thanks to which technology and science today have surpassed the goals that until a few years ago seemed unattainable.
rosalinda franklin
Rosalinda Franklin is a very important figure for modern science, since thanks to her ingenuity we know the particular way of the dna chain. In the 1940s, Franklin began to investigate in depth the properties of carbon, which gave rise to processes and techniques that are still used today in the manufacture of gas masks. But that is not why he really went down in history, since later, in 1950, he would make a much more powerful discovery. It was she who discovered that they existed. two different forms of DNAand from his research came the keys to discover that the human genome chain had a helical structure and strands of different dimensions.
Ada Lovelace
The first computer programmer in history. Ada Lovelace was daughter of the romantic poet Lord Byron, and was one of the most brilliant mathematical minds in history. His work in the field of programming hand-in-hand with Charles Babbage led to the “analytical machinery”, which was the outline of what in the future would end up becoming computers as we know them today. His notes and research in this field were the great inspiration for Alan Turing to create the first modern PC in the 1940s.
dorothy hodgkin
Dorothy Hodgkin is one of the most influential chemists in history. She is credited with discovering the structure of insulin, which he achieved as a result of his investigations into the architecture of cholesterol and the structure of penicillin. And his influence in history does not stop there, in 1964, Hodgkin won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for “his determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances”, going down in history as the third woman to win the prize in that field, following in the footsteps of Marie Curie and Irène Joliot-Curie.
Marie Curie
For many, the mother of modern physics. Marie Curie is one of the most famous women in history, and his vast endeavor in the field of physics has helped us understand how radiation works. Curie is credited with the discovery of X-rays in 1895, but it was her extensive research into radioactive elements that helped her become the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. And doubly, since got the Physics and a few years later, the Chemistry. He died in 1934 from pernicious anemia caused by long exposures to radiation.
hedy lamarr
Lamarr’s curious career path led her both to earn a living as an actress and to start out as a self-taught inventor. Her ingenuity led her to design a patent for a “secret communication system”, which was intended to deflect warfare torpedoes guided by radio waves. The project did not come to fruition in the military field, but that wireless communication technology did inspire others in the future to create something that may sound more familiar to you: WiFi and Bluetooth
Radia Perlman
Radia Perlman is known as “the mother of the internet” for his incredible work with the treatment of data on the network. She is credited with inventing the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), which was one of the key pieces for the construction of the internet as we know it today. Perlman specialized in data transfer and established the basic rules of Internet traffic, which are still in force today.
Inge Lehman
Inge Lehmann was a famous Danish seismologist who went down in history for the discovery of the composition of the earth’s core. Lehmann compared the data collected from various earthquakes and stated, for the first time, that the Earth had a solid inner core. Until then, the accepted theory was that the center of the Earth was completely liquidbut with wave changes from different earthquakes in opposite parts of the world, Lehmann was able to prove otherwise.
Maria Anning
From the center of the Earth we climbed a bit to meet Maria Anning, who was the first person to discover a complete dinosaur fossil. At just 12 years old, young Maria unearthed a complete ichthyosaur skeleton, dating back more than 200 million years. This was the first complete fossil find in history, but Anning’s journey did not end there. He dedicated his entire life to archeology.making new discoveries such as the complete fossil of a Plesiosaur and that of a Pterodactyl.
Caroline Herschel
One of the most relevant women in astronomy. Herschell has gone down in history as the first woman to discover a kite. Her work in the field of astronomy so surprised the nobles of the time that she, in 1787, received a contract that made her the first woman to receive compensation for her scientific work. In his professional career he discovered 14 new nebulae, eight comets and a total of 561 new stars.
Valentina Tereshkova
Valentina Tereshkova can boast of having been the first woman to reach space. He got the position beating out 400 other applicants, and in 1963 made history by leaving Earth aboard the Vostok 6 rocket. In this mission, which lasted approximately three days, he orbited the Earth a total of 48 times. Currently, at 86 years of age, Tereshkova has confessed that nothing would make her happier than being able to set foot on Mars.