CECILIA HELENA

PAYNE-GAPOSCHKIN

María José and Ainhoa

BIOGRAPHY
Cecilia Payne was born on May 10, 1900 in the city of Wendover, England. He
studied botany, physics and chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He was one
of the three children of Emma Leonora Helana and Edward John Payne, a London
musician and historian

In 1922, after graduating from Cambridge, Cecilia decided to seek in the United
States the professional possibilities that, as a woman, she had very restricted in
England. He enrolled at Harvard University where he had thesis director American
astronomer Harlow Shapley (1885 - 1972),
 Cecilia with her husband and two of
Harvard University her children
why is this woman important?
He decided to go to America and with only 25 years he presented his doctoral
thesis at the University of Radcliffe, that work was a real revolution in astronomy.
Payne concluded that helium, and especially hydrogen, were the main
components present in the stars and the universe. It was not until 1956 when she
became the first female associate professor at Harvard and was also a great
fighter against discrimination against women.
facts curious
-after the First World War, he initially tried to become a biologist, but physics was
part of his Tripos in Natural Science and thus was found in the Cavendish
Laboratory, terrified by predominantly misogynist professors, especially Ernest
Rutherford, in whose classes she was forced, as only woman, to sit in the front
row and be the recipient of the great man's Olympic ironies.

-In March 1934 Cecilia had married Sergei Gaposchkin Russian astronomer.
Cecilia did not adopt her husband's last name as usual in the United States, but
from then on she added it to her with a script, so she went on to sign her works as
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.
death of cecilia
Among others, it was an example and an inspiration for astrophysics Joan
Feynman, who was constantly repeated that women did not have the ability to
understand scientific concepts.

Payne passed away at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Shortly before his
death, he published his autobiography privately, now available under the title of
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections
(Cambridge University Press, 1984).