10 Famous Women in Astrophysics

[@JKTCGMV13]

Them: Name a female scientist Me: Dr. Becky Smethurst

[@antoniomonteiro1203]

That one was too obvious!...

[@ZeedijkMike]

Øv - I wanted to write that. Well at least we are on the same wavelength (-:

[@badam9656]

Same

[@culwin]

Wait I thought her last name was Becky. Like Mario. Becky Becky.

[@ronwilliams4184]

Lol ditto. She's too self-effacing.

[@LeftCoastStephen]

My favourite female scientists are my 2 daughters. One is a marine biologist working in computer science. The other is a radiation oncologist. One very proud dad. I am not surprised by the number of women in science, just disappointed that others are surprised.

[@DrBecky]

👏👏👏❤️

[@vitalspark6288]

I have been trying to debug an issue in my SQL query. I think it's caused by a dolphin. I now know who the perfect person is to help me.

[@suokkos]

@@vitalspark6288 Does your query return "Thanks for all the fish"?

[@vitalspark6288]

@@suokkos I haven't gotten a result like that in… so long.

[@suokkos]

​@@vitalspark6288 ,Good. We have still hope. Even though it looks to me that 2.6 million year old ice ages is coming to the end in a hundred years or so.

[@Valdagast]

My favorite female physicist is probably Émilie du Châtelet. I also like David Hilbert's reply when people objected to Emmy Noether being given a position at the university of Göttingen: "“I do not see that the sex of the candidate is an argument against her admission. We are a University, not a Bath House”

[@Valdagast]

So, when they put _you_ on a bank note what picture do you want them to use?

[@nathanielcowan3971]

He'd be canceled for a statement like that today

[@michaelburlingame1084]

I'm glad to see that someone remembers Emmy Noether!

[@Valdagast]

@@michaelburlingame1084 She was brilliant, but more of a mathematician than a physicist.

[@jcortese3300]

Glad to see someone else mention Emmy Noether. Without her, higher physics would not be possible. We appealed to her theorem literally every single day in physics.

[@PestOnYT]

"The surprise" probably comes from the fact that your videos are not just informative and well structured, but also due to your unique style and enthusiasm. You mix the "boring" topics with your bright smile and even show us your take-outs which makes us laugh. Thanks for all of the work you put into this channel.

[@pietvanvliet1987]

Must admit: the take-outs are the main reason I don't mind the occasional add at the end of video's at all..

[@feldegast]

showing the out takes shows that even you can make mistakes which makes you more "real." keep up the good work, i look forward to seeing you added to the list as a great female astrophysicist

[@existerdunn6468]

PESS OND YOUR TUBES I GER TGF HYIN T A EYE. ILL LOV EYEB PPOL TWE

[@sethsims7414]

Emmy Noether, Ada Lovelace, Barbara McClintock, Rosalind Franklin, Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, Margaret Hamilton. I do Bioinformatics so this is mostly a list of biologists and computer scientists/mathematicians.

[@condorboss3339]

I thought of Grace Hopper, but this was specifically about astronomers/astrophysicists. Grace Hopper's work was absolutely fundamental to computer science.

[@garyhintz6721]

Thank you for listing ADA LOVELACE! The first programmer, and GRACE HOPPER, who pushed naval programmers hard, and labeled the bug.

[@TheGeekyHippie]

Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace! Nice call!

[@feldegast]

@@garyhintz6721 what language did Grace Hopper create? Cobol was it?

[@garyhintz6721]

Lee MacKinnell - She is affiliated with the development of COBOL. I have a buddy still coding in it.

[@michaelcornish2299]

Excellent. The world needs more Dr Beckys! I am a physics teacher and rest assured I will be sharing this video with my colleagues and students.

[@mairi4673]

11. Dr Becky Smethurst

[@nathanielcowan3971]

Besides Goodell and Currie, she's probably one of, if not the most famous female scientists because of her popularity online.

[@Timelord79]

Famous enough to have an asteroid named after her! 🥳

[@condorboss3339]

Seconded. (Judging from the number of upvotes at this point, more like 'Thirtyfifthed' )

[@Canofasahi]

Lise Meitner, physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch discovered nuclear fission of uranium when it absorbed an extra neutron.

[@Neil_BT]

The physicist who never lost her humanity. And still a travesty that she wasn't awarded the 1944 Nobel prize with Hahn.

[@jcortese3300]

The fact that Emmy Noether isn't in that Google list of physicists (or probably mathematicians) is absolutely shameful. Noether's Theorem is literally used EVERY SINGLE DAY in physics after a certain point. Every. Single. Day. You literally can't do a damned thing in higher physics without invoking Noether's Theorem. Between her and Leavitt's work on Cepheid variables, neither science -- physics nor astronomy -- could even be done without them. People need to realize that this isn't a matter of lowering the standards for achievement to include (lesser) women to appear politically woke. These scientists made foundational discoveries without which no further advances could be made and which remain crucial and are used DAILY even in the 21st century, and yet everyone's first mental image of a brilliant scientist is an old guy with crazy hair and a moustache. Einstein admired Noether enormously, considering her the only person who could really understand and explain several mysterious mathematical ideas that eluded him at first. I wish I'd known this when I was in grad school. I passed my quals on the first try, finishing first in quantum mechanics, and ... well, I left. It was just not a workable environment.

[@herblapp6134]

That's too sad...the world is not a better place because of that bigotry! Thank you for sharing. 😉

[@jaimeduncan6167]

She is was mathematisian, I was under the impression that everybody that is into science/math knew who she was, even before thework of women groups in the last few years. Her work is a little bit obscure (it's pretty techincal) but fundamental. Most people can't name a single mathematician outside of the old greek ones, and people that can and are not into sciences /math is because of a movie, say the enigma machine of the one about Ramanujan.

[@sarahphillips579]

i'm interested in pursuing astrophysics, and i'm so glad I found your channel!

[@arvindiyer1649]

Mee too.

[@DrBecky]

Glad you could find it too Sarah - welcome 🤗

[@louduskin2666]

Once again I can't thank you enough for your work and staring it with us!

[@GloriaLopez-gq9ld]

I've actually met Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell she came to my university to give a lecture on pulsars.

[@shadetreader]

Awesome! I titled one of my pulsar paintings LGM after her discovery story :)

[@leif1075]

@@shadetreader you make paintings? I'd love to see them

[@shadetreader]

@@leif1075 I'm shadetreader on IG as well and I'm posting more of my visual art there, thanks!

[@leif1075]

@@shadetreader cool i don't know what IG is but ill look it up lol is it like Deviantart? Thanks for sharing.. wait unless you mean instagram?

[@shadetreader]

@@leif1075 Yeah, Instagram. I haven't been on DeviantArt in years!

[@Andrew-rl3uo]

A very inspiring astrophysicist is Marica Branchesi, one of the people that brought us in the era of multi-messenger astronomy!

[@LEDewey_MD]

Recognition of women in ALL of the sciences is long overdue. Being fiercely interested in many fields of science growing up, it's a shame that I didn't learn about ANY women in science (except Marie Curie, who was only superficially referred to in any of my science classes, and certainly her Nobel Prizes were never even mentioned), until decades later. It would have been wonderful, for example, to know that the posters in my classrooms displaying the ocean floors of the Earth were created by Marie Tharp, a geologist, whose work validated the theories of continental drift and plate tectonics.

[@TheTerranInformed]

Thank you so much!! I was just trying to remember that geologist’s name! (It came to mind watching the video) (sadly yet another example of a man taking credit for a female scientist discovery)

[@TheTerranInformed]

Oh!- and I only just remembered that the science award I won in high school was the “Donna Strickland“ award! I got to read more about her! (she seems very interesting!)

[@bobbimke82]

William Herschel: "Hi honey. How was your day?" Caroline Herschel: "Slow. Compiled a new star catalog, created a new star atlas, plus discovered nebulae and three comets. After lunch, I tried out your new 'scope. How about your day?"

[@aminazebboudj9731]

Ohhh, he was sweet to his sister calling her honey! Seriously??

[@carameloc]

As a Woman, I needed to see this as I began embarking on my Astrophysics journey in January.

[@DrBecky]

You’re very welcome Christy 🤗

[@timbeaton5045]

As they say..."Go girl!'

[@g0balot]

Much as I love your discussions regarding the universe itself, your historical observations are at least as interesting. Thank you.

[@brianlhughes]

Rosalind Franklin is one of my favorites in science

[@scienceoutthere]

Sally Ride! She’s remembered and famous of course for the obvious but she was also an astrophysicist.

[@MasteringWoodwinds]

I think you're well on your way to becoming one of the great science communicators, Becky. You not only engage people with easily digestible astrophysics and stargazing topics, but are also a demonstration that scientists are exciting and passionate people, and that anyone can be a great scientist. Inspiring!

[@eriknystrom5839]

Lise Meitner (7 November 1878 - 27 October 1968) was an Austrian-Swedish physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. She should have gotten the Nobel, but didn’t. She was Jewish. I actually met her a couple of times when I was 4 - 6 yo, when she worked in Stockholm and Uppsala, as she was a friend of my father who was an associate professor in physics. I only remember her vaguely as an old but nice lady, but later my father always talked about her with great respect.

[@2Sheds30619]

Thank you once again Dr Becky for helping educate us. I'll be sharing this on our Women's Staff Network Group at work tomorrow.

[@giovannipadilla2070]

This is one of the best educational channels I know, is awesome

[@michaelsommers2356]

In fairness, I doubt that most people can name any physicists at all beyond Einstein, Newton, and Hawking.

[@cesareneasguerreiro9640]

Hey Becky: this probably could be made into a series. Every month or so you could feature important women in physics in general. I bet you have many colleagues whose life and work would be worth sharing.

[@Dee-0015]

Okay this is my favourite Dr. Becky video! Please make more like it! I love hearing the stories of these incredible women!

[@Dave-ct1jk]

Can we get an expansion on this? I would like to hear more on this please and thanks!

[@dustman96]

Thanks for this. I have been into physics and astronomy for a long time and many of these names and their contributions I never became aware of.

[@JM-us3fr]

Katie Bouman! Though she might be more of a mathematician/computer scientist. She helped develop the imaging algorithms for the black hole photo, and is now a professor at CalTech

[@PQcoyote67]

I’d love to see another video about the women you mentioned toward the end, a series of more would be awesome 😎

[@shadetreader]

Yes please!

[@christopherkirkland7174]

That is going to be a student project - Just one each though ;-)

[@jacksavage4098]

You make your topics so enjoyable and relevant, thank you.

[@LemonLadyRecords]

Three women were such an inspiration to me when I went back to uni in the 90s. Sandra Faber, who is a prof at my alma mater, and I got to have dinner with her at our college provost's monthly dinner (and we walked to and rode the bus after, so I got her to myself, SO cool!). She was a real rock star in the 90s, on TV all the time on her galactic discoveries, dark matter, black holes, Hubble and Keck design work. She's a humble, generous, and very good science communicator, like yourself, Dr. Becky! My cousin is a Mars meteorologist and professor who worked on Mars rovers (Spirit, Opportunity). She is generous with her time and patience and doesn't mind me cornering her and picking her brain! Another cousin is a microbiologist and professor, although now in uni admin. These 3 scientists buoyed me up as I was well surrounded by men in my major.

[@Pedrommelos]

I'm so glad to have found your channel Dr.! It's definitely one of those hidden gems on youtube! :) Best regards from Brazil!

[@DrBecky]

Thanks 🤗

[@TashaDuncanDrake]

Awesome vid - thank you for a great list and all the wonderful details.

[@KNOPFLERSGOD]

Thanks for this great list Dr. Becky. Some brilliant women who fully deserve recognition.

[@DavidVerch]

You should do an interview with Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell. you can talk about what it was like for her in the sixties and how she paved the way for you and how your experiences differed. Also it is always fun to see someone interact with someone they admire.

[@jaymattson5449]

Thanks for making this video Dr. Becky. It's good to see a more inclusive list of incredible people that have made major contributions to humanity. :)

[@jenniferkalika7414]

Becky- my 12 year old daughter and I just watched your video. She got it all and insisted on subscribing to your channel! Thank you for bringing women to the forefront and inspiring girls to love science! You’re a rockstar!

[@DrBecky]

🥳 what a wonderful comment to read! Say hi to your daughter from me 🤗 so wonderful to hear you’re enjoying my videos together

[@merlejephson-king750]

Dr. Becky, I have had the priviledge of meeting and speaking with Dr. Cecilia Payne at an AAS conference..

[@steffimichael4752]

You make lovely videos, highly informative and inspiring. Incredible work, look forward to more.

[@sgcollins]

Thanks Dr! We needed this one.

[@denewinch2498]

Jocelyn Bell Burnell is my hero ... I have two daughters and I always reference her as a role model not only a fantastic scientist but a wonderful person. The donation of her prize to help women and other underrepresented groups was an awesome gesture. The fact she was overlooked for the Nobel prize is almost criminal. Even if she does not believe so she was an exceptional research student who made an exceptional discovery and it demeans the Nobel Prize that they overlooked her.

[@jimmybillard5340]

Please make more of these videos. Do a series.

[@davemmar]

Wliiamina Fleming the original Harvard Computer was Pickering’s maid. The story goes he said she could do the work of stellar classification better than the men he had hired. And she did. I am a docent at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and I often talk about female astrophysicists including the women of Hidden Figures and Harvard Computers fame. I admire your work and KZbin channel because you do so much to bring recognition to women in science, but this list is out of this world. I will continue to spread the word with even more women in the discussion. Thank you.

[@CurtTweedle]

This is fascinating. Makes me want to deep dive more into the accomplishments of these scientists. Thank you, Dr. Becky

[@henrikwannheden7114]

This video is great! In Sweden we have two somewhat known women astronomers who both have won awards for public outreach and popularizing science in Sweden: Marie Rådbo and Maria Sundin, both at the University of Gothenburg. Both have been co-hosts on popular shows in public service TV and radio.

[@DrBecky]

Awesome! I’ll look them up 🤗

[@stoffls]

My first thoughts of female scientists would be Lise Meitner and Hedy Lamarr. But it is so true, we tend to think of scientists as old men with beards, although so many great women contributed to the inventions and discoveries of the world we live in.

[@christiancampbell466]

Hedy Lamarr was off the chain.

[@norbertlauret8119]

Well, even when talking about men, thinking about "old men with beard" is sooooo wrong. I'm always pis*** off when I see a video talking about special or general relativity illustrated with a photo of a 60 years old einstein while he was 26 years old in 1905 (special relativity) and 36 in 1915 (général relativity)...

[@neoanderson7]

Thank you for redirecting some of the spotlight to the appropriate people involved. It's amazing how many stories there are of people not getting the credit they deserve. Kudos to you Dr. Becky!!

[@MelancholyCrypto]

I'm so proud of you! Your channel and work is so appreciated.

[@DrBecky]

Thanks 🤗

[@derNephelin]

would love more lists like that.

[@480pilot]

I'm a neophyte Becky. And I am sorry that these women are not recognized in education, let alone history. Thanks.

[@StormiidaeBlogspot]

Excellent! Thanks for this. Next time you do another video on this theme, could you leave the names up on screen longer? It helps with remembering. You know, my aging mind and memory:-)

[@DrBecky]

Sure! Thanks for the suggestion 👍

[@christopherkirkland7174]

There is always the pause button - I nearly wore it out :-)

[@waynecoons9695]

Dr. B, what a wonderful video. Thanks.

[@nppj1407]

Great topic, Dr. B. Very aspirational and inspirational.

[@sapelesteve]

Great video Dr. Becky! I am sending this off to my Grand-daughter who, as you know, wants to become an Astrophysicist. She will enjoy this I'm sure....... 👍👍👏👏👏👏😉😉

[@rwomble1]

Skylias on Twitch brought me to you~ Great video!

[@johnbunton6351]

There is also Ruby Payne-Scott probably the first female radio astronomer. She discovered three of the five categories of solar bursts originating in the solar corona and made major contributions to the techniques of radio astronomy

[@TheTerranInformed]

Thank you for making this video!!!

[@botrbro]

Annie Jump Cannon is high on my list. What she and the rest of that team did was absolutely amazing.

[@meowmeowka7341]

thank you so much!! love your channel and your work, you're a big inspiration!

[@amapianoyasemzansi]

Your videos are so fun and educative to watch. I wish you could upload new videos in every 6hrs. ❤️❤️

[@rip7562]

Well done Dr. Becky. Fantastic issue. I'd like to see more content of this sort, perhaps a discussion of women scientists by field of study or specialty?

[@thepom88]

Thanks Doc! I asked and you provided. An amazing video. I was waiting for you to sing Eurythmics, Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves. Keep up the great work!!!

[@steelwarrior105]

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, thought by training a mathematician, PhD from Yale, one of the first and best computer scientists and programmers and a freakin admiral to boot. She is my favorite female scientist

[@frankowalker4662]

Although she is'nt a physicist, Ada Lovelace has always been a hero of mine.

[@mikeholmstrom1899]

To come up with the coding of a machine, before the was ever finished, is something. Poisson came up with an equation of charge, now used for charges in a diode, well before the first diode. Fermi came up with the idea of a type of Field Effect Transistor, years before the first one was made.

[@Blaergh]

Another person you can add to the list of contemporary female astrophysicists is one of my old ASU professors, Dr. Cecilia Lunardini, a particle astrophysicist focused on stellar neutrinos. If I remember correctly, part of her research was modeling how many neutrinos an apparatus in Italy would detect in a given time, mixing computer modeling with particle and astrophysics, which I found pretty awesome.

[@wakledodd]

Thank you for this, it was really needed I think. I have seen a change though over time and more and more scientist are represented in TV and in other places regardless of their gender or ethnicity and based on their knowledge. I think, you Dr Becky, are a good representation of this and I enjoy your content immensely. It is important for us to have role models and people we can identify with so thats why the list is important I think. This is true not just for science though, people like Nellie Bly the journalist that I had not heard of really sparked an interest in the early struggles of women in that field for example.

[@TemidayoAmay]

Thank you so much. Please make more of these, especially with women and people of the global majority 🌸

[@nickc173]

Thank you for this enlightening video, I was generally aware that many brilliant women have been rather under represented historically (to say the least) when it comes to significant contributions to science in general.. as you highlighted so well with google. I really appreciate learning the names of the these historically important women and about their individual contributions to the world

[@realdragon]

Wilhelmina Iwanowska was a polish astronomer who discovered the scale of distance in the universe, she was the best principal of the observatory

[@billdevitt4324]

A brilliant compilation of a few, of the many under-acknowleged ladies of STEM! Well done as ever, Ma'am! 😊

[@rogerlie4176]

You could add Carolyn Shoemaker, who just turned 91, to your list. She has discovered more comets than any other living person. She was a co-discoverer of the famous comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, that crashed into Jupiter in 1994, together with her husband Eugene and David Levy. A bit of a tangent but Eugene, who died in a car crash in 1997 that almost also took Carolyn's life, has some of his ashes buried on the moon, the only human buried on another celestial object.

[@GelidGanef]

Me: There was definitely more than one woman in that google list! ** rewinds and looks again ** Damn you 18th century men and your fabulous wigs!

[@DrBecky]

😂😂😂

[@leif1075]

@@DrBecky Hey Becy I hope you can respond to my questions when you have a chance. Thanks very much.

[@FransJSuper]

Fantastic video, Dr. Becky. It’s good to put the women on the forefront, who contributed so much to astrophysics and to science in general. I consider you one of them. Limitless kudos!👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽

[@thamsanqandaba7941]

Great video, Dr Becky.

[@TheMarrethiel]

Thank you for that. I think you need to start a set of lists like that. I'm not "surpirsed" at number of women in science, but it is nice to have them shouted out to the internet.

[@edthompson9569]

Great video. Thanks for this.

[@JessicaJacometti]

You're so inspirational. Thank you!

[@thilohesse8883]

Excellent! Thanks for the post.

[@dernudel1615]

My favorite is Annie Jump-Cannon. Her work on star classification is really interesting, to me.

[@pierreabbat6157]

The fine girl every astronomer wants to kiss.

[@emilecaire3346]

I would also like to add Lise Meitner to the list. She was an Austrian physicist during the XXth century, first woman to obtain a degree in the University of Vienna. Her work was mostly on nuclear fission, her collaborator Otto Hahn was awarded the Chemistry Nobel prize in 1944 and her work was not fully recognized.

[@Kombivar]

Dr Becky Smethurst is always the first pops in my mind if I'm being asked. Great Episode, as always!

[@damianokane6161]

Vera Rubin did some amazing work, she'd probably top my list.

[@erebology]

Vera Rubin already topped my list.

[@duderoony]

Nicely done Becks. I’ve always said I don’t understand the way folks think. To my way of thinking it’s the way we’re built by the society we live in. Which means, of course, things will change slowly but surely. You can get on it. Thank you for sharing another one.

[@Timelord79]

Beatrice Tinsley. We named one of our telescopes at our University Astronomy Club after her. She beat out a few of the ones you named in the poll we held.

[@williambunting803]

New Zealand pulls its weight. Rutherford, Ian Axford, and a female Beatrice Tinsley from my favourite City. I am going to have to a study of famous female Kiwi Scientist now.

[@johnkotches8320]

I look forward to a day when you have trouble narrowing down to a top 100 list!

[@richc47us]

Great Job and work Dr Becky...applause!

[@thylacinenv]

How about Elisabetha Hevelius who produced the "Prodromus Astronomiae" after the death of her husband Johannes and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchlin whose thesis on the elements in stars was groundbreaking and much admired by Otto Struve. As always, a very interesting presentation.

[@brucebushey5267]

Awesome work!

[@OboeCanAm]

Caroline Herschel was also a professional musician, as was her brother William.

[@avi12]

If I was asked to name a female scientist, I'd name Dr. Grace Hopper

[@Michael500ca]

Vera Rubin should have received a Nobel Prize in Physics. She literally discovered dark matter.

[@parthsavyasachi9348]

We found dark matter??

[@parthsavyasachi9348]

@Raging S any links etc? Not interested in dark matter as theoretical concept ie substitute for something we don't understand.

[@denmaroca2584]

Fritz Zwicky discovered dark matter. Not only were his observations correct and accepted today but he also gave dark matter its name (albeit in German). That's not to diminish Vera Rubin's work, which led to the hypothesis being generally accepted.

[@parthsavyasachi9348]

@@denmaroca2584 no did not discover dark matter. All she discovered was something that was unusual. If we discovered dark matter then all the search at cern etc would shut down to search dark matter. There are even simulations recently done without dark matter and able to simulate the universe as we know it. Bring doubt to the concept of dark matter. So no. We haven't discovered dark matter. We have concept of dark matter. That's it.

[@parthsavyasachi9348]

@Raging S she got noble for it? Anyone who finds dark matter is getting noble just to start things. Any link etc will do that says we found dark matter.

[@marydion7872]

Dr. Becky, you deserve to be on this list.

[@Lisa-pe6dl]

Thanks for the video 😊

[@stephenoreilly5696]

Women scientists in general dont get enough credit. I'm Irish and an organic chemist so I have to mention Kathleen Lonsdale, a pioneering Xray crystallographer who determined benzene was flat, among many other discoveries! Great vid as usual Dr. Becky! 👍

[@garyb8373]

I always find it interesting how people pronounce "albeit" -- I always notice it when is used. As a word it's short of the phrase "all be it", and is pronounced the same way.

[@JayFe0]

I've only noticed this recently. The number of highly educated people I've seen mispronouncing this word is strange. I'm sure there's a ton of technical words that I've only ever read that would make people cringe if they heard me say them out loud.

[@esgra-ur]

Hello, i have question that i dont have anyone else that i can ask. In the theory of the big bang the universe had a start in which everything was concentrated in one place(?) but would've had a lot of mass so wasnt it a black hole; from what i understand beyon a point of mass concentration in one place a body becomes a black hole so... am i miss-understanding everything?

[@EarlWallaceNYC]

This is one of those videos that will continue to inspire long after we have "shuffle off this mortal coil ". Thanks

[@florgi121]

The whole ending of the video gave me goosebumps. Hopefully we'll get to witnesses a world were women in science are the custon for the general public and not a cause for surprise. Thank you so much for all your hard work, Becky!

[@joen0411]

The only one I know from the list is Henrietta Leavitt because you mentioned her in a previous video which is one of my favorites. I ended spending a whole weekend reading about the great debate.

[@bimblinghill]

There's a project on Zooniverse to catalogue the notes of some of these astronomers.