Harriet Brooks facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Harriet Brooks
Harriet Brooks (1876-1933)
Born	July 2, 1876 Exeter, Ontario
Died	April 17, 1933 (aged 56)
Nationality	Canadian
Alma mater	McGill University
Known for	Discoverer of atomic recoil
Scientific career
Fields	Nuclear physics
Institutions	Barnard College McGill University
Academic advisors	Ernest Rutherford

Harriet Brooks (born July 2, 1876 – died April 17, 1933) was a pioneering Canadian scientist. She was the first Canadian woman to become a nuclear physicist. Brooks is best known for her important work on how atoms change and on radioactivity. Her mentor, Ernest Rutherford, believed she was as talented as the famous Marie Curie. Harriet Brooks was also one of the first scientists to discover radon and to try to figure out its atomic mass.

Harriet Brooks' Early Life

Harriet Brooks was born in Exeter, Ontario, on July 2, 1876. Her parents were George and Elizabeth Warden Brooks. She was the third of their nine children. Her father, George Brooks, owned a flour mill. After it burned down, he became a traveling salesman.

Harriet's family moved around Quebec and Ontario during her childhood. She attended the Seaforth Collegiate Institute. Eventually, her family settled in Montreal.

Education and Groundbreaking Research

Out of Harriet's nine siblings, only she and her sister Elizabeth went to university. Harriet Brooks started at McGill University in 1894. This was only six years after McGill had its first female graduate.

University Studies and Early Achievements

Harriet won a scholarship for her last two years of university. However, she could not get a scholarship for her first two years because she was a woman. In 1898, Brooks earned her Bachelor of Arts degree with top honours. She studied mathematics and natural philosophy. She also received the Anne Molson Memorial prize for her excellent work in math.

Brooks became the first graduate student in Canada for Sir Ernest Rutherford. She worked with him right after finishing her degree. For her master's degree, she studied electricity and magnetism. Her work was published in 1899, even before she finished her thesis. This was in the Transactions of the Canadian Section of the Royal Society.

In the same year, Brooks became a tutor at the new Royal Victoria College. This was McGill University's college for women. In 1901, she became the first woman at McGill to earn a master's degree.

Discoveries in Radioactivity

After her master's degree, Brooks did more experiments with Rutherford. She studied the nature of radioactive emissions from thorium. These experiments were very important for the development of nuclear science. Papers by Rutherford and Brooks were published in 1901 and 1902. They appeared in Royal Society Transactions and the Philosophical Magazine.

In 1901, Brooks received a special fellowship. This allowed her to study for her physics doctorate at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. During her year there, she won the prestigious Bryn Mawr European Fellowship. Rutherford helped her arrange to use this fellowship at his old lab. This was the University of Cambridge, where she became the first woman to study at the Cavendish Laboratory. She did important work there, but her supervisor, J.J. Thomson, was busy with his own research.

Challenges and Further Research

In 1903, Brooks returned to Royal Victoria College. She rejoined Rutherford's research group. Her new research was published in 1904. The next year, Brooks joined the faculty at Barnard College in New York City.

In 1906, she became engaged to a physics professor from Columbia University. The Dean of Barnard College, Laura Gil, told Brooks that her marriage should end her job at the college. This led to a strong exchange of letters. Brooks felt she had a duty to her career and to other women to keep working after marriage. She was supported by the head of Barnard's physics department, Margaret Maltby. However, the Dean said the college's leaders believed a married woman could not be a successful academic. Brooks eventually broke off her engagement and stayed at Barnard.

At the end of 1906, Brooks moved to a quiet place in the Adirondacks. There, she met John and Prestonia Martin, who were interested in social change. Through them, she also met the Russian writer Maxim Gorky. In October 1906, Brooks traveled with Gorky and others to Capri, an Italian island. During this time, Brooks met Marie Curie. Soon after, she started working with Curie at the Institut du Radium in Paris, France.

Brooks' research contributions during this time were very valuable. She was mentioned in three articles from the Curie Institute. Brooks also tried to get a job at the University of Manchester. Rutherford wrote a recommendation letter for her. He said she was "next to Mme Curie the most prominent woman physicist in the department of radioactivity." He also said she was a "careful worker with good experimental powers." However, Brooks decided to end her physics career for reasons that are not fully known.

Personal Life and Legacy

In 1907, Harriet Brooks married Frank Pitcher, a physics instructor from McGill. They settled in Montreal. She became a mother to three children. Sadly, two of her children passed away when they were teenagers. She stayed active in groups for university women. However, she no longer worked in physics.

Harriet Brooks passed away on April 17, 1933, in Montreal, at age 56. Her obituary in The New York Times on April 18, 1933, called her the "Discoverer of the Recoil of a Radioactive Atom." She died from a blood disorder. Ernest Rutherford wrote a very praising obituary for her in the journal Nature.

Harriet Brooks' Lasting Impact

The importance of Harriet Brooks' work in physics became more recognized in the 1980s. Her contributions are now seen as foundational to nuclear science. She was the first to show that a radioactive substance from thorium was a gas. This gas had a molecular weight of 40-100. This discovery was key to understanding that elements change during radioactive decay. Her research on radon and actinium was groundbreaking. Her short career was very successful.

The Harriet Brooks Building, a nuclear research lab at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, is named after her. In 2002, she was inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame.

See also

In Spanish: Harriet Brooks para niños