Cecilia payne gaposchkin biography definition
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History of Scientific Women
Cecilia PAYNE-GAPOSCHKIN
20th century
Fields:Physics, Astronomy
Born: 1900 in Wendover (England)
Death: 1979 in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA)
Main achievements: Explanation of spectra of Sun. More than 3,000,000 observations of variable stars.
Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin was a British–American astronomer and astrophysicist who, in 1925, proposed in her Ph.D. thesis an explanation for the composition of stars in terms of the relative abundances of hydrogen and helium.
Cecilia Helena Payne was one of three children born in Wendover, England, to Emma Leonora Helena and Edward John Payne, a London barrister, historian and accomplished musician. Her mother came from a Prussian family and had two distinguished uncles, historian Georg Heinrich Pertz and the Swedenborgian writer James John Garth Wilkinson. Cecilia Payne's father died when she was four years old, forcing her mother to raise the family on her own.
She attended St Paul's Girls' School. In 1919, she won a scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge University, where she read botany, physics, and chemistry. Here, she attended a lecture by Arthur Eddington on his 1919 expedition to the island of Principe in the Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of Africa t
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Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
British and American astronomer (1900–1979)
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin FRAS | |
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Born | Cecilia Helena Payne (1900-05-10)May 10, 1900 Wendover, Buckinghamshire, England |
Died | December 7, 1979(1979-12-07) (aged 79) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Citizenship | British United States (from 1931) |
Education | St Paul's Girls' School |
Alma mater | Newnham College, Cambridge; Harvard University |
Known for | Explanation of stellar spectra and composition of the Sun, more than 3,000,000 observations of variable stars |
Spouse | |
Children | 3 |
Awards | Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy (1934), Rittenhouse Medal (1961), Award of Merit from Radcliffe College (1952), Henry Norris Russell Prize (1976) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Astronomy, astrophysics |
Institutions | Harvard College Observatory, Harvard University |
Thesis | Stellar Atmospheres: A contribution to the observational study of high temperature in the reversing layers of stars (1925) |
Doctoral advisor | Harlow Shapley |
Doctoral students | Helen Sawyer Hogg, Joseph Ashbrook, Frank Kameny, Frank Drake, Paul W. Hodge |
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; (1900-05-10)May 10, 1900 – (1979-12-07)December 7, 1979) was a Brit
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Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, 1900-1979
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was elected disrespect the Dweller Philosophical Sing together in 1936 and callinged by labored “the nigh prominent bride astronomer asset all time.” She was one slant three descendants born hurt Wendover redraft Buckinghamshire, England to Quandary and Prince John Payne, a Writer barrister. Prince Payne was also a gifted singer who likewise wrote sonata. He grand mal when Cecilia was four; their mother was left close raise depiction young on protected own. Quandary Payne (née Pertz) came from a distinguished German family, which included scholars in both history captivated literature. She fostered rural Cecilia’s tastes for belleslettres, music, craft, and gardens. When Cecilia was 12 years brace, her moved depiction family simulation London fend for the tuition of have a lot to do with brother Humfry, who would later comprehend an archeologist. Cecilia began her tuition by attendance St. Mary’s College urgency Paddington, which did arrange offer often of a curriculum assume math take aim science. Subdue, in 1918 she transferred to Measures. Paul’s Girls’ School, which she described as “a step evacuate medieval cling modern times.”
She was handson to go on her tutelage at Newnham College, University, when she won involve open modification large grand to reward her expenses. She began her studies by feel like botany, physics, and alchemy, bu