ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************

>
>Date:    Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:19:38 -0500
>From:    H-Scholar Editors <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: February 14: Agnes Pockels (1862-1935)
>
>Submitted by Margaret DeLacy, H-Scholar editor
>[log in to unmask]
>
>
>Subject:  	February 14: Agnes Pockels (1862-1935)
>From:  	"Penny L. Richards" <[log in to unmask]>
>Date:  	Thu, February 14, 2008 2:13 pm
>
>
>Today marks the birthdate of a notable independent scholar in the
>sciences:  Agnes Pockels (1862-1935) stopped school at 15 to care for
>her parents and run their home.  She borrowed science textbooks from
>her younger brother while he was at university, and in the family
>kitchen she set up experiments to study surface tension in
>contaminated fluids--that is, she measured the behavior of dishwater,
>soap bubbles, and organic oils.  She built an apparatus, called a
>Pockels trough, from buttons, thread, and food containers, and kept
>careful notes.  Before she was thirty, she had published her first
>paper in _Nature_ (1891).
>
>Agnes Pockels published fifteen more research papers with no
>institutional backing, based on experiments conducted at home.  She
>also translated an English text on tides into German, and
>corresponded with others in her field.  In 1931, she was recognized
>with an award from the German Colloid Society, for her contributions;
>in 1932, she was given an honorary doctorate by the nearby technical
>university.
>
>She wrote, "I had already developed a passionate interest in the
>natural sciences, especially in physics, and would have liked to
>become a student, but at that time women were not accepted for higher
>education and later on, when they started to be accepted, my parents
>nevertheless asked me not to do so."
>
>http://home.physics.ucla.edu/~cwp/articles/pockels/pockels.html
>http://membership.acs.org/c/chicago/WCC/pockels.html
>http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/JCEWWW/Features/eChemists/Bios/Pockels.html
>
>Penny L. Richards PhD
>Research Scholar, UCLA Center for the Study of Women
>Co-editor, H-Education and H-Disability
>[log in to unmask]

***********************************************************************
For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.

Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org.

The ISEN-ASTC-L email list is powered by LISTSERVR software from L-Soft. To learn more, visit
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html.

To remove your e-mail address from the ISEN-ASTC-L list, send the
message  SIGNOFF ISEN-ASTC-L in the BODY of a message to
[log in to unmask]