Passed Over for the Nobel Prize

The four women scientists and astronomers below made major discoveries in the 20th century. Yet, the Nobel committee ignored them at prize time. There is no prize for earth science - so much for Lehmann. Leavitt died before her name was nominated. Wu did not attempt to woo the prize, and Bell was too young to cry foul!

Her discovery is used to measure the distance to other galaxies.

She used basic geometry and the shadow zones for seismic waves.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt - 1908
While studying Cepheid Variable stars at
Harvard Observatory, she discovered the
mathematical relationship between their luminosity and their period.

Inge Lehmann
Danish by birth and trained as a seismologist, she discovered the earth has a small solid inner core.

Two theorists won; but her difficult experiment was not recognized.

She realized the pulsar was like a spinning lighthouse beacon.

Madame Wu (1950's)
Born in China, she studied in the USA, and stayed to discover that parity is not conserved in nuclear decay.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell
In the 1960's, she discovered pulsars while she was a grad student. She now works at the Open University in England.

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