「自 1979 年去世以來，這位發現宇宙構成的女人甚至沒有收到過一塊紀念牌匾。報紙上的訃告也沒有提及她最偉大的發現。[…] 每個高中生都知道艾薩克·牛頓發現了引力，查爾斯·達爾文發現了進化論，阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦發現了時間的相對論。但說到我們宇宙的組成，教科書只是如何知道宇宙中最知道的宇宙中最知道宇宙的組成，是我們如何知道宇宙的組成。
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傑里米·諾爾斯 (Jeremy Knowles) 討論了塞西莉亞·佩恩 (Cecilia Payne) 的革命性發現至今仍未得到充分認可的問題。 （透過頭韻）
哦，等一下，讓我告訴你關於塞西莉亞·佩恩的事。
塞西莉亞·佩恩的母親拒絕為她的大學教育花錢，因此她獲得了劍橋大學的獎學金。
塞西莉亞·佩恩完成了學業，但劍橋大學不授予她學位，因為當時女性的曝光率並不高，所以她說不管怎樣，然後搬到了美國哈佛大學工作。
塞西莉亞·佩恩是有史以來第一個獲得博士學位的人。他獲得了拉德克利夫學院的天文學博士學位，其論文被奧托·施特勞夫 (Otto Strauve) 稱為“天文學史上最傑出的博士論文”。
塞西莉亞·佩恩不僅發現了宇宙的成分，還發現了太陽的成分（通常，人們認為是天文學家亨利·諾里斯·拉塞爾發現了太陽的成分與地球的不同，但他比佩恩晚了四年得出結論——而且是在他告訴佩恩不要發表論文之後）。
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin | |
|---|---|
_-_Science_Service.jpg) | |
| Born | Cecilia Helena Payne May 10, 1900 Wendover, Buckinghamshire, England |
| Died | December 7, 1979 (aged 79) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Citizenship | British United States (from 1931) |
| Education | St Paul's Girls' School |
| Alma mater | Newnham College, Cambridge; Harvard University |
| Known for | Explanation of stellar spectra and composition of the Sun, more than 3,000,000 observations of variable stars |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
塞西莉亞·佩恩 (Cecilia Payne) 是我們了解變星（從地球上看其亮度會波動的恆星）的基本原因。幾乎每一項關於變星的研究都是基於她的工作。
塞西莉亞·佩恩是哈佛大學第一位晉升為正教授的女性，她打破了哈佛大學科學系和天文學領域女性的玻璃天花板，並激勵了整整一代女性從事科學事業。
塞西莉亞佩恩很棒，每個人都應該認識她。
照片：施萊辛格圖書館。
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Payne-Gaposchkin at the Harvard College ObservatoryI did not know that!
“Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Her newspaper obituaries do not mention her greatest discovery. […] Every high school student knows that Isaac Newton discovered gravity, that Charles Darwin discovered evolution, and that Albert Einstein discovered the relativity of time. But when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know.”
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Jeremy Knowles, discussing the complete lack of recognition Cecilia Payne gets, even today, for her revolutionary discovery. (via alliterate)
OH WAIT LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT CECILIA PAYNE.
Cecilia Payne’s mother refused to spend money on her college education, so she won a scholarship to Cambridge.
Cecilia Payne completed her studies, but Cambridge wouldn’t give her a degree because at that time there's not much exposure for woman, so she said to heck with that and moved to the United States to work at Harvard.
Cecilia Payne was the first person ever to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy from Radcliffe College, with what Otto Strauve called “the most brilliant Ph.D. thesis ever written in astronomy.”
Not only did Cecilia Payne discover what the universe is made of, she also discovered what the sun is made of (Henry Norris Russell, a fellow astronomer, is usually given credit for discovering that the sun’s composition is different from the Earth’s, but he came to his conclusions four years later than Payne—after telling her not to publish).
Cecilia Payne is the reason we know basically anything about variable stars (stars whose brightness as seen from earth fluctuates). Literally every other study on variable stars is based on her work.
Cecilia Payne was the first woman to be promoted to full professor from within Harvard, and is often credited with breaking the glass ceiling for women in the Harvard science department and in astronomy, as well as inspiring entire generations of women to take up science.
Cecilia Payne is awesome and everyone should know her.
Photograph: Schlesinger Library.
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