“Stladed women”: three scientists without Nobel Prize

Scientists, whose discoveries faded in the shadow of their male colleagues, authors who published their works among male pseudonyms, or artists whose names have been forgotten in the shadow of their husbands: there are many women whose influence was erected from history and for whose performance men received applause. Historian Leonie Schöler tells her stories in her book “Defached Women” (Penguin).

For international women’s day on March 8, we look at three women from science, to whom humanity owes groundbreaking discoveries, but which have never been considered with a Nobel Prize – because their work was underestimated or simply stolen.

“Good. Nass photo,” said biochemist Dr. Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958) on May 2, 1952 on a clean X-ray, which should finally bring the last information on the decryption of the DNA. Almost 100 kilometers away from Franklin’s laboratory at King’s College London, two men, James Watson and Francis Crick, researched the same problem at the University of Cambridge, but repeatedly failed with their models made of cardboard, wires and plastic balls.

Ten years later, those two men together with the physicist Maurice Wilkins “were awarded the Nobel Prize in the Medicine category for their discoveries on the molecular structure of the nucleic acids and their importance for the transmission of information in a living substance”.

In 1968, James Watson bluntly described in his autobiography, such as him and Francis Crick, the breakthrough with her research was achieved by using Maurice Wilkins secretly rummaging through Rosalind Franklin’s documents, having to pass them on, stolen from her data collected and as her own expenses. In his narrative, he also did not give good hair to the young scientist Rosalind Franklin.

“She was the victim of an intrigue based on envy and prejudices against women in science,” writes Leonie Schöler in “stuck women”. How thoroughly and successfully Franklin worked and how revolutionary her discovery was no matter of play: “She was primarily seen and evaluated by her colleagues as a woman and had no chance against her on the male bundle that was committed to her.”

The Austrian-Swedish physicist Lise Meitner (1978-1968) was significantly involved in the discovery of nuclear fission, one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century. Together with Otto Hahn, she discovered that the atom of uranium was disintegrated into smaller atoms during the neutron bombing, which formed the basis for the development of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. But although Meitner did the decisive theoretical work, Hahn received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944.

Because Meitner was not only a woman, she was also Jew, and in 1938 fled from Berlin to Sweden. There she tried to continue her research in Germany in the best possible way and lively with her boyfriend and colleague Otto Hahn. In 1939, Meitner provided the decisive explanation for the discovery of Hahn. In the same year and then again in 1940 and 1943, the two were proposed for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 1945, the responsible committee came up with the idea of ​​retrospectively distinguishing Otto Hahn for 1944 – but only him alone.

The reasons for this are a combination of political and social factors. In Nazi Germany, Otto Hahn could not publish his results with a Jewish colleague. In addition, political interests influenced the decision of the Nobel Committee. In the mid -1990s it was cleared by documents for what reasons Lise Meitner received the Nobel Prize for the theoretical interpretation of the nuclear fission: prejudices and misjudgments on Meitner’s role in the discovery, supported by faulty reports by the Swedish physicist Erik Hulthén, led to exclusion.

“Lise Meitner never received the Nobel Prize, not in 1945 and not afterwards. Not as a scientific, but not as a woman, not as a Jew, not persecuted,” writes Leonie Schöler. “Your identity and starting and framework conditions were completely ignored in the report – at the same time they were the central factors for the result.”

British astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell (81) made one of the most important discoveries of astronomy in 1967 at the University of Cambridge: the first discovery of a pulsary. She presented her findings to her doctoral supervisor Antony Hewish. He published the finds in the “Nature” journal. The press knocked on, wanted to lead interviews about the sensational find. “Hewish was asked about the astrophysical importance, Jocelyn Bell Burnell for her hip size, her cup size and how many friends she already had,” writes Leonie Schöler. “She was asked for the press photos, but please continue to button her blouse.”

In 1974 the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded for the discovery of the Pulsare – to Antony Hewish and Martin Ryle, whose radio telescope was used. Hewish was officially honored for “his crucial role in the discovery of pulsaries” – a wording that skilfully dismissed the fact that he did not even discover it himself, but only classified it theoretically. Antony Hewish not only did not mention Bell Burnell in his acceptance speech and did not share his prize money with her, but was even unhappy that she was repeatedly asked about her again and again.

In 1993 Jocelyn Bell Brunell still took part in a Nobel Prize ceremony: When the US astrophysicist Joseph Taylor and his doctoral student Russell Hulse were also awarded for the discovery of a pulsary-the doctoral student had made the discovery, the professor interpreted her. In order to look back Bell Burnell’s achievements, Taylor invited the scientist to the ceremony. “In the end, one of the women who never got the Nobel Prize sat in the Golden Hall of the Stockholm town hall, under the sparkling eyes of the Queen of the Mälarsee, who had seen many worthy men, but far too few worthy women,” Schöler writes.