Page 30 - Gi flipbook June/July 2018

WOMEN

WHO CHANGED THE WORLD

As part of IGEM’s support for International Women in triumph was intended for the US
Engineering Day on 23 June, let’s get to know some of the navy during the Second World
pioneering women who changed the field of engineering War, but is now used in modern
forever with their ingenuity, determination and genius wireless communication. Her “secret
communication system” used
“frequency hopping” to guide radio-
controlled missiles underwater in a
ADA LOVELACE wrote that the “analytical engine way that was undetectable by the
weaves algebraical patterns just as enemy. It was Lamarr’s brainwave
Ada Lovelace was one of the first the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and she developed it together with a
women to become involved in the and leaves”. friend, the composer George Antheil.
technology of computers. Born in Ada died from cancer in 1852 at the The patent was granted in 1942.
1815, she was sole child of the brief age of 37. Today Ada Lovelace Day is The military took her idea and
and tempestuous marriage of the an annual event with a stated aim to eventually used it, but Lamarr was
erratic poet George Gordon, Lord raise the profile of women in science, advised that she would make a
Byron, and his mathematics-loving technology, engineering, and maths greater contribution to the war effort
wife Annabella Milbanke. Following and to create new role models for as a pin-up rather than as an inventor:
the separation of her parents as a girls and women in these fields. entertaining troops, pushing war
small child, Ada was raised by her bonds and selling kisses.
mother and educated by tutors with HEDY LAMARR Lamarr’s invention didn’t become
a strong focus on mathematics and widely known until near the end of
the sciences, as her mother hoped The story of Hollywood star and her life, in the late 1990s. It gained
to deter her from following in the inventor Hedy Lamarr, the actress more traction when her obituaries
footsteps of her poetic father. MGM called “the most beautiful were published in 2000. Since then,
Ada was fascinated by mechanical woman in the world” is one of a the news has spread and she has
toys and scientific pursuits. At 17, she brilliant woman who was consistently become an icon of women in science.
met the polymath Charles Babbage underestimated.
(1791-1871). Babbage showed Ada his The actress, born Hedwig Kiesler
first calculating engine, the difference in Vienna in 1914, was given her new
engine, which aimed to automate surname by Louis B Mayer when she STEPHANIE L
the production of numerical tables, signed for MGM in 1937. He named KWOLEK
thereby reducing human error. The her after the studio’s silent-era vamp
engine captured Ada’s imagination Barbara La Marr. Stephanie Kwolek was born in 1923,
and she attended lectures regarding Back in Europe she had made a in New Kensington, Pennsylvania.
it, examined its plans, studied, and film that was too hot for MGM’s When she graduated from the
became part of the same social circle family-values ethos. Gustav Machaty’s women’s college (Margaret
as Babbage. Ecstasy (1933) starred a teenage Morrison Carnegie College) of
Ada is best known for her notes Hedy as a frustrated bride who finds Carnegie Mellon University, she
and comments on Babbage’s plans fulfilment in an affair with a young applied for a position as a chemist
for an analytical engine, a general- man: she appears completely nude with the DuPont Company. At
purpose programmable computing and performs what is probably the DuPont, the polymer research she
engine. In 1843, Ada translated a paper first on-screen female orgasm. worked on was so interesting and
by General L F Menabrea describing Although she achieved international challenging that she decided to drop
Babbage’s new calculating engine and fame as a Hollywood movie star, her plans for medical school and
to this she added notes which contain Lamarr was not satisfied by acting. In make chemistry a lifetime career.
what is regarded as one of the earliest her trailer between takes, and staying She was engaged in several
computer programmes. Ada saw the up all night at home, she practised projects, including a search for
graphical potential of the analytical her favourite hobby: inventing. “I don’t new polymers as well as a new
engine and that, by using a punched have to work on ideas,” she said. “They condensation process that takes
card system, scientific information come naturally.” place at lower temperatures. Kwolek
could be seen in a new light. She Lamarr’s greatest scientific was in her 40s when she was asked

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