Isn't this a woman's business?

Remember the anecdote about the ratio of male scientists to female scientists?

– There are many more outstanding male scientists than outstanding female scientists.
– Not true!
– Yes? Well, name me at least one woman Nobel laureate.
– Maria Sklodowska-Curie.
– And in what science?
– Physics!
– Wow. Is that all?
– No. There is also chemistry!
– Who?
– Maria Sklodowska-Curie …

It is generally accepted that everything connected with the exact sciences and, in particular, with technology and gadgets, is run by men, and women are unlikely to have a place there.

Despite the fact that, according to statistics, there are actually several times more men employed in these industries, it would be wrong to assume that all discoveries and achievements belong to men.

Let's try to remember the outstanding women who forever inscribed their names in the annals of sciences traditionally considered male.

Augusta Ada King – aristocrat, mathematician

The daughter of the famous poet George Gordon Byron, August Ada King, Countess Lovelace, better known as Ada Lovelace, is considered the world's first programmer, or, as it has become fashionable to say now, a programmer.

She coined the terms 'cycle' and 'work cell', and created the world's first program for calculating Bernoulli numbers for a calculating machine, a project of which was developed by Charles Babbage.

In the late seventies of the twentieth century in honor of Lovelace was named one of the first universal programming languages ​​- 'Ada'.

Maria Sklodowska-Curie – twice Nobel laureate

Maria Sklodowska was born in Warsaw in the family of the director of the male gymnasium Vladislav Sklodowski.

In 1878, Maria entered school, which, thanks to diligence and hard work, she graduated with a gold medal. After school I decided to continue my education.

But, despite the difficulties (in Poland it was difficult for women to get a higher education – women were not admitted to the University of Warsaw), Maria made the decision not to back down from the decision to continue her education and eventually moved to France and entered the Sorbonne at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, where she studied mathematics, chemistry and physics.

On June 23, 1903, Maria presented her doctoral dissertation 'Investigation of radioactive substances' at the Sorbonne. In the same 1903, Marie and Pierre Curie were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 'In recognition of the exceptional services they rendered to science by the joint research of radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel'.

In 1911, Marie Curie received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 'For outstanding services in the development of chemistry: the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element'.

Marie Curie became the first – and today the only woman in the world – twice to win the Nobel Prize.

Hedy Lamarr – actress, inventor

We are used to using wireless communication protocols such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and rarely think about where it all came from and who came up with it.

Well, the forerunner of the modern Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a system based on 'frequency hopping' technology that allows torpedo control from a distance, was patented in 1942 with composer George Antheil by Hedy Lamar.

The meaning of the invention was far from peaceful, because it allowed torpedoes to achieve their goal, avoiding the effects of 'jammers', but many technologies came into peaceful life from the lobbies of military offices.

Radja Perlman – 'the mother of the internet'

On January 1, 1951, in the USA, Virginia, Portsmouth, Radya Perlman was born into the family of an engineer and programmer. From childhood, she showed interest in the exact sciences and playing 'mothers and daughters' preferred the study of mathematics.

As a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she took part in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program at the LOGO Lab at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Created the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP, 'Spanning Tree Protocol' / Spanning Tree Protocol /), for which she received the nickname 'Mother of the Internet', as STP made possible the emergence of mass networks using Ethernet technology.

Carol Shaw – Game Designer

Since school, she was fond of mathematics, which she knew perfectly well, and showed an interest in completely non-female pursuits – instead of playing with dolls, Carol pestered her brother-radio amateur, trying to figure out the intricacies of the work of 'transistors and resistors'.

After high school, she entered the University of California at Berkeley, to graduate in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer science.

Then she worked at Atari (yes, at the very Atari where Steve Jobs also worked at one time). You'd think she was in the 'cosmetics, color matching, design for game cartridges' as Ray Kassar (president of Atari) intended to use her when Carol first caught his eye.

But no, she was interested in the technical part of the development, in which she was ultimately directly involved – developing games for the new Atari 2600 game console.

While at Atari, Shaw wrote the games Video Checkers (1978), 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe (1978), and Super Breakout (1978, co-authored with Nick Turner).

Grace Hopper – mathematician, naval officer

Born December 9, 1906 in New York. Since childhood, she was curious and showed interest in mechanics – she dismantled several alarm clocks to understand how they work, for which she received scolding from her mother, which, however, did not moderate her curiosity and thirst for knowledge.

At the age of 16, she tried to enter Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, New York), but did not pass on points due to Latin. The second attempt was successful.

As a result, she graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics.

In 1934, she received her Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University under the direction of Oistin Ore, and in 1943 she took the oath of office in the US Navy reserve and after graduating with honors from the School of Reserve Cadets at Smith College was assigned to the Bureau of Artillery Computing Projects at Harvard University.

She was a Mark I computer programmer under Howard Aiken.

Hopper believed that a programming language should resemble an ordinary language, not machine code, and in 1952 she developed the first compiler for a computer programming language, thereby making a real technological revolution.

In addition, she is credited with popularizing the term 'debugging' as a process of troubleshooting.

Roberta Williams – Screenwriter and Game Designer

And, not far from programming, again a little about games.

Most have played such a genre of computer games as 'quest', but few people know that we owe the graphic interpretation of what is happening on the screen to Robert Williams.

Before her, games of the 'quest' genre were … text. Yes, just letters and words, and no graphics.

While playing such a game, she thought that it would be nice to replace the letters with pictures, which would make the game more interesting and fun.

With this idea, she turned to a programmer and part-time husband, Ken Williams, who wrote the code. As a result, in 1980 the first graphic quest Mystery House was released, which became a classic of the genre.

Are you familiar with Sierra On-Line, a large publisher that released the famous Phantasmagoria game?

So, this publishing house was founded by the Williams couple.
Incidentally, today the roots of the Williams-founded company can be found at Activision Blizzard.

Stephanie Kwolek – chemist, inventor

On July 31, 1923, a woman was born into a family of Polish emigrants living in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, who was destined to save millions of lives.

Since childhood, Stephanie dreamed of becoming a doctor and saving people, but this dream was destined to come true only partially – she never became a doctor, but she saved many lives. But not personally, but thanks to her discovery, made while working at DuPont, where she was invited to work in 1946, after graduating from Margaret Morrison Carnegie College of Carnegie Mellon University, with a degree in chemistry.

Stephanie Kwolek's invention carries the intricate name 'polyparaphenylene terephthalamide', and is known to most ordinary people as Kevlar.

It is this thin and at the same time super-strong fiber that became the basis for the creation of body armor that saved millions of lives.

In 1995, Kwolek became the fourth woman to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Conclusion

Men aren't the only ones driving the tech world. There are many women among the inventors making history. But even without any inventions, our women have always been and remain the very best, adored and beloved, desired and dear. Dear women, please accept our congratulations on this wonderful holiday on March 8!