Margaret Geller
Margaret Joan Geller (born December 8, 1947 in Ithaca , New York , USA ) is an American astrophysicist .
Life
Margaret Geller was born the daughter of the crystallographer Seymour Geller and his wife Sarah Levine Geller. As a child she was very interested in mathematics. In 1970 she earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley . At first she wanted to specialize in solid-state physics , but Charles Kittel advised her against it. She should rather choose something that would be fashionable ten years from now if she is a fully trained scientist, such as astrophysics or biophysics . She chose the former, earning a Masters Degree in 1972 and her PhD from Princeton University in the field three years later . From 1974 to 1976 she was a post-doctoral student at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics , then a fellow at the Harvard College Observatory and 1980 to 1983 assistant professor at Harvard University . She has worked at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory since 1983 and has also been an astronomy professor at Harvard University since 1988.
Geller mapped the universe and refuted the hypothesis that galaxies are evenly distributed on large scales. To do this, she and her colleagues measured the redshift of 584 galaxies for the first time. The galaxies are by no means randomly distributed on the map they have produced, but are arranged as if in a foam-like structure. The “stick figure” in this diagram also became famous. In 1989, Geller and John Huchra discovered the Great Wall , which was the largest structure in the universe until then. She is also interested in the distribution of dark matter in the cosmos and the mass in the halo of our Milky Way , in galaxy clusters and in star formation .
Geller's hobbies are filming, reading, talking, writing, traveling and gardening.
Publications (selection)
- Bright Galaxies in Rich Clusters: A Statistical Model for Magnitude Distributions . Dissertation, 1975
- more than 200 scientific papers
- Films (all in collaboration with Boyd Estus ):
- 1989 Mapping The Universe (5 minutes)
- 1989 Where The Galaxies Are (8 minutes)
- 1993 So Many Galaxies ... So Little Time (40 minutes)
- 1996 Fred and Ginger on the Universe (short film)
Awards (selection)
- 1990 MacArthur Fellowship
- 1991 Newcomb Cleveland Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- 1995 Harvard University Hoopes Prize
- 1996 Klopsteg Prize from the American Association of Physics Teachers
- 1997 Science Lion at the New York Public Library
- 2003 Adion Medal from the Nice Observatory
- 2008 Magellanic Premium
- 2010 James Craig Watson Medal
- 2010 Henry Norris Russell Lectureship
- 2013 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize
- 2014 Karl Schwarzschild Medal
- Honorary Doctorates : Connecticut College (1995), Gustavus Adolphus College (1997), University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (2014), University of Turin (2017)
Memberships
- American Astronomical Society
- International Astronomical Union
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- American Physical Society (Fellow 1995)
- Phi Beta Kappa (since 1969)
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 1990)
- National Academy of Sciences (since 1992)
literature
- Ulf von Rauchhaupt: The cartographer of the universe . In: Die Zeit , 33/1998
- The International Who's Who of Women . 2002, ISBN 1-85743-122-7 , p. 201
- Who's Who in America . 2007, ISBN 0-8379-7006-7 , p. 1596
- Current Biography . 1997, ISSN 0011-3344 , ISBN 0-8242-0938-9 , pp. 181-184
- Margaret Joan Geller . In: Benjamin F. Shearer, Barbara S. Shearer: Notable Women in the Physical Sciences. A Biographical Dictionary . Greenwood Press, Westport CT 1997, ISBN 0-313-29303-1 , pp. 122-126
Web links
- Margaret J. Geller. In: Physics History Network. American Institute of Physics
- Short biography on harvard.edu (English)
- Resume. (ps) harvard.edu, 2006, archived from the original on September 14, 2006 (English).
- Margaret Geller at the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Margaret Geller: When Galaxies Collide . Lecture given on October 2, 2004
Individual evidence
- ↑ Valérie de Lapparent, Margaret J. Geller, John P. Huchra: A Slice of the universe . In: Astrophysical Journal . 1986, vol. 302, pp. L1-L5.
- ↑ Margaret J. Geller, John P. Huchra: Mapping the universe. In: Science . 1989, Volume 246, pp. 897-903.
- ^ The Magellanic Premium of the American Philosophical Society , website of the APS . Retrieved October 29, 2019.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Geller, Margaret |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Geller, Margaret Joan (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American astrophysicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 8, 1947 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ithaca , New York , USA |