a biography for the day--Maria Goeppert-Mayer
Maria Goeppert-Mayer
Dates: June 18, 1906 - February 20, 1972
Occupation: mathematician, physicist
Known for: Nobel Prize winner
Also known as: Maria Goeppert Mayer, Maria Göppert Mayer, Maria Göppert
A mathematician and physicist, Maria Goeppert Mayer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 for her work on the nuclear shell structure.
Maria Göppert was born in 1906 in Kattowitz, then in Germany (now Katowice, Poland). Her father became a professor of pediatrics at the University at Göttingen, and her mother was a former music teacher known for her entertaining parties for faculty members.
With her parents support, Maria Göppert studied mathematics and science, preparing for a university education. But there were no public schools for girls to prepare for this venture, so she enrolled in a private school. The disruption of World War I and the post-war years made study difficult and closed the private school. A year short of finishing, Göppert nevertheless passed her entrance exams and entered in 1924. The only woman teaching at the university did so without a salary -- a situation with which Göppert would become familiar in her own career.
She began by studying mathematics, but the lively atmosphere as a new center of quantum mathematics, and exposure to the ideas of such greats as Niels Bohrs and Max Born, led Göppert to switch to physics as her course in study. She continued her study, even on the death of her father, and received her doctorate in 1930.
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Maria Goeppert-Mayer died in 1972, after suffering a heart attack in late 1971 that left her in a coma.
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blbio_goeppert_mayer.htm