McKade Fasel

Ms. Hayes

8/24/23

Maria Göppert Mayer was a German born American physicist. She was born in the town of

Kattowitz in the German Empire on June 28th, 1906. Her father, Friedrich Göppert, was a pediatrician.

Her mother was Maria Née Wolff. Growing up, she was an only child. She went to Hohere

Technische for her schooling, before switching schools to Frauen Studium, a school for

university seeking girls.

Later on, she attended the University of Gottingen, where learned many things about

science. She would end up concentrating most of her studies into the study of atoms. This would

culminate in her writing her doctoral thesis on the possibilities of two photon absorption.

This would end up helping her later on in life.

She would end up marrying chemist Joseph Edward Mayer, who was a associate

professor at John Hopkins University. Joseph couldn't take her in as a faculty member, under

suspicion of nepotism. She did however become an assistant, and published a paper on double

beta decay. She would later take an unpaid position at Columbia University.

Harold Erway, director of the Substitute Alloy Materials Laboratory at the university of

Columbia, put in a one year leave for Mayer, so she could work for a “important war project”.

She would also help with the research and development of thermonuclear weapons working at

the Los Alamos Laboratory. Most of the work she did during this time period was classified,
thanks to the secretive nature of the Manhattan Project. Both her and Edward Teller would work

on the Opacity Project. After working really hard, she would end up at the top secret Los Alamos

Laboratory.

After the war, she would travel to Chicago and Argonne. It was here that she would

develope the Nuclear Shell model. She would go on to publish this model in 1950. The model

itself explained why certain numbers of nucleons in nucleus would cause various types of nuclei

to be stable. The numbers pertaining to this would become known as “Magic Numbers”.

During this, Joe Mayer, Maria’s husband, would go into detail about Maria’s conversation

with fellow physicist Enrico Fermi: “Fermi and Maria were talking in her office when Enrico

was called out of the office to answer the telephone on a long distance call. At the door he turned

and asked his question about spin-orbit coupling. He returned less than ten minutes later and

Maria started to 'snow' him with the detailed explanation. You may remember that Maria, when

excited, had a rapid fire oral delivery, whereas Enrico always wanted a slow detailed and

methodical explanation. Enrico smiled and left: 'Tomorrow, when you are less excited, you can

explain it to me.” This conversation would show just how well versed and researched Maria is in

the world of atomic physics.

Later on, describing how nuclear shells would couple together, she stated the following:

“Think of a room full of waltzers. Suppose they go round the room in circles, each circle

enclosed within another. Then imagine that in each circle, you can fit twice as many dancers by

having one pair go clockwise and another pair go counterclockwise. Then add one more
variation; all the dancers are spinning twirling round and round like tops as they circle the room,

each pair both twirling and circling. But only some of those that go counterclockwise are twirling

counterclockwise. The others are twirling clockwise while circling counterclockwise. The same

is true of those that are dancing around clockwise: some twirl clockwise, others twirl

counterclockwise.”

This shows her brilliant way of explaining extremely complex things in a very simple way.

She would become a professor at The University at California at San Diego in 1960.

Unfortunately, she would suffer a stroke, but would continue teaching anyway. A few years later,

she would be elected to become a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science. In

1965, She would receive the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement.

On February 20th, 1972, she would die a year after suffering from a heart attack that left

her in a comatose state. In honor of her, the American Physical Society would create the Maria

Goeppert Mayer Award. Another legacy of hers would be the Goppert Mayer Crater on Venus,

named in her honor. She would be inducted into the National Women’s hall of Fame in 1996.

Goppert will go down in history as a pioneer for women physicists.

 Resources:
http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/mayer-m

aria.pdf

Used for researching facts and dialog from Maria Goppert Mayer

https://archive.org/details/lifeofonesownthr0000dash

Used for researching facts about Mayer’s personal life, and as well as Joe Mayer.