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SYIF: Intense field interaction with molecules and clusters

SYIF 1: Intense field interaction with molecules and clusters 1

SYIF 1.2: Invited Talk

Friday, March 17, 2006, 14:08–14:36, HV

Maria Goeppert Mayer: Nobel Prize Woman in Science — •Sharon Bertsch McGrayne — Seattle, WA

Maria Goeppert Mayer, who shared the Nobel Prize in physics with Hans Jensen, was born and educated in Gottingen. There she fell in love with an American student. After their marriage, she moved with him to the United States in 1929 to have a career. Because of laws and university regulations against married women scientists, Maria Mayer worked at three major American universities as a volunteer faculty member without pay. She discovered the shell model of the nucleus as a volunteer professor at the University of Chicago, where she was a colleague of Enrico Fermi. She was not paid for her university research until ten years after her famous discovery. Letters from Jensen to Maria Mayer reveal their close friendship.