Book portrays women who transformed science – 08/15/2023 – Marcelo Viana

A colleague introduced me to the book “101 Incredible Women Who Transformed Science”, which I strongly recommend to readers of any age.

I have to confess that I flipped through it with some embarrassment. Of the scientists presented, around 30 are mathematicians or astronomers, all with very interesting stories. How is it possible that, in decades of life as a mathematician, always interested in knowing my science as broadly as possible, I have only heard of a handful of them? In some cases, I even knew the last name, but, I admit, because of a male relative…

Over the next few weeks, I’ll share some of those amazing stories I learned from “101 Women…” and other sources.

Athirte was born in Egypt around 1900 BC and we know his name from the Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily, who, between 60 and 30 BC, wrote a universal history in 40 volumes (only 15 survive to our days).

In the first volume, Diodorus tells that Athirte was the daughter of Pharaoh Sesostris, from the 12th^The dynasty of Egypt, and enjoyed great prestige at court for his ability to accurately calculate the position of the planets. At the time, the main application was in predicting the future, and it seems that Athirte’s observations were often right, much to his father’s satisfaction.

But she is not the oldest astronomer we know of. En-Hedu-Anna was the daughter of King Sargon the Great, founder of the Akkadian empire, and lived in the city of Ur around 2300 BC. She was a priestess and would have directed astronomical observatories in the kingdom. She left writings on clay tablets with ideas, hymns and poems about the stars. At a time when writings used to be anonymous, she was perhaps the first person in history to sign an authorial work.

Centuries later, the Greek historian Plutarch (46–119) wrote about the astronomer Aglaonice, who lived in Thessaly, northern Greece, in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC and was famous for her calculations of lunar eclipses.

According to Plutarch, Aglaonice was profoundly knowledgeable about the movement and phases of the Moon and, “knowing in advance when it would be hidden by the shadow of the Earth, she told everyone that she had the power to make the Moon disappear from the heavens”. We do not know whether contemporaries took these exaggerations seriously, but it seems that they brought Aglaonice a reputation for witchcraft. Which, unfortunately, is not uncommon for women of science.

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