Canada's first female nuclear physicist, comparable to Marie Curie

Excellence in Research

Harriet Brooks (July 2, 1876 - April 17, 1933).

Harriet Brooks was born in Exeter, Ontario, Canada, to a family of nine children. Her father, George Brooks, owned a flour mill. The factory then burned down and without insurance, the family had to follow him everywhere and settled in Montreal. Of the Brooks' nine children, only Harriet and Elizabeth attended college. Harriet Brooks entered McGill University in 1894, graduated with first-class honors in mathematics and natural philosophy in 1898, and was awarded the Anne Molson Memorial Prize for excellence in mathematics.

Harriet was the first PhD student in Canada of Professor Ernest Rutherford, the "father" of nuclear physics. Under the guidance of Mr. Rutherford, Harriet studied for a master's degree in electricity and magnetism. Before Harriet's thesis was completed, her work was published in the Royal Society of Canada in 1899. In the same year, Harriet worked as a teaching assistant at the newly established Royal Victoria University. In 1901, she became the first woman at McGill University to receive a master's degree.

Physics Lab

After graduating with a master's degree, she performed a series of experiments to determine the nature of radiation from thorium. These experiments served as one of the foundations for the development of nuclear science. Articles by Rutherford and Harriet in 1901 and 1902 were published in the Royal Society and in the Philosophical Review. Rutherford has asked her to work on trying to figure out why radioactive thorium emits something that can be carried by air currents. Harriet discovered that the gas was actually radon. Her contributions to Rutherford's work on radioactive decay won Rutherford the Nobel Prize in 1908. Rutherford has always credited Mrs. Harriet for discovering this.

In 1901, Harriet received a scholarship to study for a doctorate in physics at Bryn Mawr University in Pennsylvania (USA). During that year, Harriet won the prestigious European Bryn Mawr Scholarship. Mr. Rutherford arranged for Harriet to accept this scholarship at his former laboratory at the University of Cambridge (UK), where she became the first woman to study at the Cavendish Laboratory. Mr. JJ Thomson, who was so preoccupied with his own research, often ignored Harriet's progress. Her self-esteem was hurt. In 1903, Harriet returned to Imperial Victoria College and rejoined Mr. Rutherford's group, undertaking research published in 1904.

Forgotten names

In late 1906, Harriet worked with John and Prestonia Martin, two famous socialists. Through Martins, she also became acquainted with the Russian author Maxim Gorky. In October 1906, Harriet traveled with Gorky and a group of other Russians to the Italian island of Capri. During this time, Harriet met scientist Marie Curie and shortly thereafter began working as one of Curie's staff at the Radium Institute in Paris (France). Although none of Harriet's studies were published during this period, her contributions are considered valuable and she has been cited in three contemporary papers published under the auspices of the Curie Institute. . Harriet was the first to realize that one element could transform into another. She was also one of the discoverers of radon and the first researcher to attempt to determine its atomic mass. Her impact on the world of nuclear physics is undeniable and she is considered a peer of Marie Curie.

During this time, Harriet worked at the University of Manchester. In the letter of recommendation that Mr. Rutherford wrote, he noted that "besides Marie Curie, Harriet is the most prominent female physicist in radioactivity". However, Harriet decided to end his physics career for unknown reasons.

In 1907, Harriet married McGill University physics lecturer Frank Pitcher and settled in Montreal. She remained active in women's organizations and was President of the Canadian Women's Club in 1923 but no longer did any work in physics. She died at the age of 57 and is believed to have leukemia from radiation.

Harriet Brooks with male physicists of the same time

The importance of Ms. Harriet Brooks' contributions to physics was only recognized in the 1980s as foundational work in the field of nuclear science. She was the first to show that the radioactivity emitted by thorium was a gas with a molecular weight of 40 to 100, a discovery important for the determination that elements undergo some transformation in radioactive decay. Her research on radon and actinium was pioneering. She is one of the great scientists in Canadian history and whose work is being rediscovered. The Harriet Brooks Building, a nuclear research laboratory at the Canadian Nuclear Laboratory, is named after her. She was inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame in 2002, nearly 70 years after her death.

In 2010, the American Physical Society honored Ernest Rutherford and his collaborator Frederick Soddy for their work on radioactivity. Harriet Brooks' contributions are the cornerstone of contemporary nuclear science, but she often encounters obstacles in her career due to gender. This happened when she became engaged to a physicist at Barnard College, the oldest women's university in the US. She told the dean that she planned to get married. The dean sent a letter saying he didn't want anyone in the department to put his job second and didn't think it was appropriate for a married woman to put her career ahead of her family. Harriet Brooks responded: "