In honour of Ada Lovelace Day, which you can read about here, I've pledged to blog about a woman in science. In keeping with the theme of this blog, I'll tell you that one of the sights I hope to see in Bath is the Herschel Museum of Astronomy, former home of Caroline and William Herschel. William Herschel was the guy who discovered a planet he called "George's Star," but which later became known as Uranus, thereby ensuring grief for future science teachers.
His sister, Caroline (1750-1848), was a medal-winning astronomer in her own right, as well as a lovely singer. She was the first woman to officially discover a comet (she discovered a grand total of 8) and did a lot of the grunt calculations for her brother. She even got paid as his assistant when William was appointed King's Astronomer (which in my uneducated opinion was pretty good for that time).
You can read about her on MacTutor here. I like the idea of Gauss visiting her in her old age, because "when you hear the name Gauss, you must bow."
I leave you with a link to a poem by Adrienne Rich. Happy Ada Lovelace Day, everybody!
Caroline H. sounds like my kind of gal. What a great long life. And what a heartfelt poem. Thanks.....
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