The Women Quantum History Tried to Forget

Transcript

The early story of quantum physics is often told like it belonged to a few famous men, but women helped shape it from the start. H. Johanna van Leeuwen showed in her doctoral research that magnetism in solids could not be explained by classical physics alone. Laura Chalk Rowles later gave the earliest experimental test and the first confirmation of Schrödinger's wave mechanics predictions for hydrogen. Hertha Sponer became a major figure in quantum spectroscopy and molecular spectroscopy. Grete Hermann spotted an error in von Neumann's famous proof against hidden variables, long before that critique became widely known. And Sonja Ashauer completed a Cambridge thesis under Paul Dirac on electron self energy in quantum electrodynamics before her life was cut short. Their stories remind us that quantum history is not only a tale of celebrated geniuses. It is also a story of women whose work was real, important, and too often left in the shadows.