Harriet Brooks

Harriet T. Brooks ( born July 2, 1876 in Exeter, Ontario, † April 17, 1933 ) was a Canadian nuclear physicist. It was by their contemporaries - regarded as an outstanding woman in the field of research into radioactivity - next to Marie Curie, Lise Meitner and Berta Karlik.

Life and work

In 1898, Harriet Brooks graduated with excellent grades at McGill University in Montreal in mathematics and natural philosophy (BA ) at a time when many people believed that women should not be admitted to universities. After that, she joined the research group of the New Zealand - British physicist Ernest Rutherford in Montreal.

In 1901 she received a PhD position at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, a women's college, she wrote, did not finally dissertation. She won a 'President 's European Fellowship' scholarship and joined the research group of order 1902 Joseph John Thomson on. There she received her master's degree.

In 1903 she returned to McGill University in Montreal back. In 1904 she first observed the ' recoil' phenomenon ( Radioactive recoil ), but interpreted it wrong and it could not be verified experimentally. Only in the winter of 1908 succeeded Otto Hahn in Berlin to demonstrate the radioactive recoil without any doubt and to be published in the journal Physical beginning of 1909. Lise Meitner and Hahn used then a little later the recoil to develop a new method for the production of radioactive decay products.

1904 Brooks got a job as a physics tutor at Barnard College in New York. In October 1906, she traveled with her ​​Russian friends ( Maxim Gorky, Maria Adreyeva, Nicolai Burenin ) to Europe. 1906/1907 she worked in Paris with Marie and Pierre Curie. In May 1907, she accepted an invitation from Ernest Rutherford to London.

On July 13, 1907, she married Frank Henry Pitcher. They moved to Montreal and had three children. Like many scientists of her time she finished her studies with her ​​marriage. On April 17, 1933 Harriet Brooks died after a long illness (leukemia ) at the age of 56 years.

Writings (selection )

• With Ernest Rutherford: The New gas from radium. In: Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada. Episode 2, Volume 7, 1901, Section III, pp. 21-25. (online)
• With Ernest Rutherford: New gas from radium. In: The Chemical News and Journal of Physical Science. Volume 85, 1902, pp. 196-197.
• With Ernest Rutherford: Comparison of the Radiations from Radioactive Substances. In: Philosophical Magazine. Episode 6, Volume 4, Number 19, 1902, pp. 1-23, doi: 10.1080/14786440209462814.