Kathleen Lonsdale

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dame Kathleen Lonsdale ( born Yardley , born January 28, 1903 in Newbridge , Kildare , Ireland , † April 1, 1971 in London ) was an Irish crystallographic engineer who discovered the planar-hexagonal structure of benzene .

Kathleen Lonsdale

Life

Lonsdale was born Kathleen Yardley in Newbridge, Ireland. She was born at Charlotte House, Newbridge, where her father was the town postmaster. She was the tenth child of Harry Yardley and Jessie Cameron. Her family moved to England when she was five years old.

She went to Ilford County High School for girls, but moved to boys 'school to take math and science, which were not offered at the girls' school.

She received her B.Sc. from Bedford College for Women in 1922 and an M.Sc. in Physics from University College London in 1924. She then joined Sir William Bragg's group , where she also did her PhD . In 1927 she married Thomas Jackson Lonsdale. They had three children - Jane, Nancy and Stephen.

Lonsdale became a Quakerin in 1935 . As a result, she was a practicing pacifist and was detained in Holloway Prison for some time during World War II because she refused to register for civil defense services or to pay a penalty tax for non-registration.

Lonsdale received her PhD (D.Sc.) from University College London in 1936. She was working on the synthesis of diamonds when she discovered the structure of benzene. She was one of the pioneers of X-ray diffraction studies on crystals. Lonsdale was one of the first two female members of the Royal Society of Science in London in 1945.

In 1949 Lonsdale became Professor of Chemistry and Head of the Crystallography Department at University College London. She was the first female professor at this college, where she stayed until her retirement in 1968.

In 1956 she was ennobled with the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire . She was also the first female President of the International Union of Crystallography (1966) and the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1967).

In 1971 she died at the age of 68.

A particular shape of diamond , Lonsdaleite , was named after her, as was a science building at the University of Limerick and one at University College London . The National University of Ireland in Maynooth has named a chemistry award after her.

Fonts

  • The Structure of the Benzene Ring in Hexamethylbenzene , Proceedings of the Royal Society 123A: 494 (1929).
  • An X-Ray Analysis of the Structure of Hexachlorobenzene, Using the Fourier Method , Proceedings of the Royal Society 133A: 536 (1931).
  • Simplified Structure Factor and Electron Density Formulas for the 230 Space Groups of Mathematical Crystallography , G. Bell & Sons, London, 1936.
  • Diamonds, Natural and Artificial , Nature 153: 669 (1944).
  • Divergent Beam X-ray Photography of Crystals , Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 240A: 219 (1947).
  • Crystals and X-Rays , G. Bell & Sons, London, 1948.

biography

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Encyclopedia of World Biography (Eng.)
  2. ↑ biographical data, publications and Academic pedigree of Kathleen Lonsdale at academictree.org, accessed on January 1 of 2019.
  3. ^ Biological Sciences
personal data
SURNAME Lonsdale, Kathleen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish physicist, crystallographist
DATE OF BIRTH January 28, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Newbridge , Kildare, Ireland
DATE OF DEATH April 1, 1971
Place of death London