Margaret Burbidge

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox scientist Eleanor Margaret Burbidge, Template:Post-nominals (Template:Nee; 12 August 1919 – 5 April 2020) was a British-American observational astronomer and astrophysicist. In the 1950s, she was one of the founders of stellar nucleosynthesis and was first author of the influential B2FH paper. During the 1960s and 1970s she worked on galaxy rotation curves and quasars, discovering the most distant astronomical object then known. In the 1980s and 1990s she helped develop and utilise the Faint Object Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. Burbidge was also well known for her work opposing discrimination against women in astronomy while also opposing positive discrimination.

Burbidge held several leadership and administrative posts, including director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory (1973–1975), president of the American Astronomical Society (1976–1978), and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1983). Burbidge worked at the University of London Observatory, Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago, the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of California San Diego (UCSD). From 1979 to 1988 she was the first director of the Center for Astronomy and Space Sciences at UCSD, where she worked from 1962 until her retirement.

Research career

Burbidge studied at University College London (UCL), where she received an undergraduate degree in 1939 and a Ph.D. in 1943.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/> During the Second World War, she acted as a caretaker at University of London Observatory (ULO); the wartime blackout made it easier for her to use the observatory's telescopes.<ref name=Fox-2020-04-06/> In August 1944, her observations at ULO were twice interrupted by V-1 flying bomb explosions nearby.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/> She was turned down for a postdoctoral fellowship from Carnegie Observatories in 1945 because the job required observing at Mount Wilson Observatory, which was reserved for men only at that time.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=Horgan-2001-02>Template:Cite news</ref> From 1948-51,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> she taught astronomy at ULO to undergraduate students from across the University of London system, including Arthur C. Clarke who was then an undergraduate at King's College London.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/>

In 1951 she took a position at the University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory, Wisconsin, her first job in the United States.<ref name=Boksenberg-2020-05-28>Template:Cite journal</ref> Her research during this period focused on the abundances of chemical elements in stars. She returned to the UK in 1953, when Margaret and her husband Geoffrey Burbidge were invited to work with William Alfred Fowler and Fred Hoyle at the University of Cambridge.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/> The team combined data on elemental abundances produced by the Burbidges with Hoyle's hypothesis that all chemical elements might be produced in stars by a series of nuclear reactions, and Fowler's laboratory experiments on those reactions.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/> The idea became known as stellar nucleosynthesis. They published their model in a series of papers,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> culminating in a magnum opus in 1957,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> now known as the B2FH paper after the initials of Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler & Hoyle. Margaret Burbidge was the first author of the paper, which was written while she was pregnant.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/><ref name=Rubin-1981>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=Bruce-Medalists>Template:Cite web</ref> The paper demonstrated that most heavier chemical elements were formed in stellar evolution.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The theory they developed remains the fundamental basis for stellar nucleosynthesis. Fowler was later awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics (shared with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar) for his work on nucleosynthesis, and expressed surprise that Burbidge was not included.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/>

When Fowler moved back to the U.S., he advised the Burbidges to come with him to California, suggesting Margaret (the observer) should re-apply for the fellowship at Mount Wilson Observatory while Geoff (the theorist) should seek the Kellogg Fellowship at Caltech.<ref name=Rubin-1981/> Margaret's application was again refused on gender grounds, so the couple swapped applications. Geoff won the position at Mount Wilson, while Margaret took the Caltech job in 1955. Whenever Geoff was required to go observing on Mount Wilson, Margaret would accompany him, ostensibly as his assistant.<ref name=Rubin-1981/> In reality, Geoff worked in the photographic dark room while Margaret operated the telescope.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/> When the observatory's management found out, they eventually agreed that she could observe there, but only if she and her husband stayed in a separate self-catered cottage on the grounds, rather than the catered dormitory which had been designed for men only.<ref name=Fox-2020-04-06/>

She joined the University of California San Diego (UCSD) in 1962.<ref name=Boksenberg-2020-05-28/> In the 1960s and 1970s she measured the masses, compositions, and rotation curves of galaxies and performed early spectroscopic studies of quasars.<ref name=Bruce-Medalists/> Her discoveries in this area included QSO B1442+101 at a redshift of 3.5, making it the most distant known object at the time, a record which she held from 1974 to 1982.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> She was a supporter of the steady state theory of cosmology, but her own work on quasars helped to support the alternative Big Bang theory.<ref name=Boksenberg-2020-05-28/>

Burbidge pictured in 1971

In 1972 Burbidge became director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO), on secondment from UCSD.<ref name=Bruce-Medalists/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> For 300 years the post had always been held by the Astronomer Royal, but in 1972 the positions were split, with Martin Ryle appointed as Astronomer Royal and Burbidge as RGO director. The official explanation was that because Ryle was a radio astronomer, he was unsuitable to lead an optical observatory. Burbidge sometimes attributed the split to sexism,<ref name=Horgan-2001-02/> and at other times to politics intended to reduce the clout of the RGO director.<ref name=AIP-oral-hist>Template:Cite web</ref> Burbidge left the RGO in 1974, fifteen months after joining, due to controversy over moving the Isaac Newton Telescope from RGO headquarters at Herstmonceux Castle to Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in the Canary Islands.<ref name=AIP-oral-hist/>

Burbidge campaigned in opposition to discrimination against women in astronomy and was also opposed to positive discrimination. In 1972 she turned down the Annie J. Cannon Award of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) because it was awarded to women only:<ref name=Boksenberg-2020-05-28/> "It is high time that discrimination in favor of, as well as against, women in professional life be removed".<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06>Template:Cite news</ref> Her letter declining the prize caused the AAS to set up its first committee on the status of women in astronomy.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/> In 1976, she became the first female president of the AAS.<ref name=Yount-1996>Template:Cite book</ref> During her term as president she convinced the members to ban AAS meetings in states which had not ratified the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/> In 1984 the AAS awarded her its highest honor, regardless of gender, the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship.<ref name=aas_russell>Template:Cite web</ref>

From 1979 to 1988, she served as the first director of the UCSD's Center for Astrophysics and Space Science.<ref name=Bruce-Medalists/><ref name=Boksenberg-2020-05-28/> In 1981 she was elected President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), serving her one-year term from February 1982 to February 1983.<ref name=Yount-1996/>

At UCSD she helped develop the Faint Object Spectrograph for the Hubble Space Telescope, which launched in 1990.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/> With this instrument, she and her team discovered that the galaxy Messier 82 contains a supermassive black hole at its center.<ref name=Horgan-2001-02/><ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/> As professor emerita at UCSD she continued to be active in research until the early 21st century. Burbidge authored over 370 research papers.<ref name=WMC-2003/>

Personal life

Eleanor Margaret Peachey was born in Davenport, Stockport, UK.<ref name=Fox-2020-04-06/> As a child, Margaret deduced that her birth had been exactly nine months after the Armistice of 11 November 1918 that ended the First World War, so concluded that she was probably conceived when the armistice was announced.<ref name=autobio>Template:Cite journal</ref> She was the daughter of Marjorie Stott Peachey and Stanley John Peachey;<ref name=WWH-2020-05-07>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> her father was a lecturer in chemistry at the Manchester School of Technology (now part of the University of Manchester) and her mother was one of his students.<ref name=autobio/> A few years after Margaret was born, Stanley obtained a patent related to the vulcanisation of rubber, which made enough money for the family to move to London in 1921 where he set up his own industrial chemistry laboratory.<ref name=autobio/> Margaret first became interested in astronomy aged 3 or 4, after seeing the stars on a ferry trip across the English Channel.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/> By age 12, she was reading astronomy textbooks by James Jeans, a distant relative of her mother.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/>

On 2 April 1948, Margaret Peachey married Geoffrey Burbidge. The couple had met six months earlier at University College London.<ref name=Fox-2020-04-06/><ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/> Geoffrey was a theoretical physicist, but Margaret's passion for astronomy convinced him to switch to theoretical astrophysics.<ref name=Skuse-2020-04-06/> The two collaborated on much of their subsequent research. The couple had a daughter, Sarah, who was born in late 1956. In 1977, Margaret became a United States citizen.<ref name=Fox-2020-04-06/> Geoffrey Burbidge died in 2010.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Margaret Burbidge died on 5 April 2020, in San Francisco at age 100 after a fall.<ref name=Fox-2020-04-06>Template:Cite news</ref>

Honors

Awards

Named after her

See also

References

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Further reading

Template:Presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Template:Albert Einstein World Award of Science Laureates Template:Women's Museum of California Template:Authority control

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