Google is continuing its efforts to highlight and acknowledge the contributions of women in Science and Technology, especially if their achievements were not really given attention in the male-dominated field. That is why the Google Doodle of unsung astronomer Beatrice Tinsley on Jan. 27 is a very welcome sight.
The Tinsley-inspired Doodle was created in celebration of what would have been the 75th birthday of one of New Zealand's greatest astronomers. Tinsley, however, passed away because of cancer in 1981 at the age of 40.
"Today's homepage celebrates the scientific genius of Beatrice Tinsley, whose work in cosmology and astrophysics made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the universe and the way galaxies behave within it," Google wrote.
It's not too surprising if Tinsley's name does not ring a bell since, in spite of her contributions to her field, she did suffer from professional jealousy and sexism. It's already 2016 so it's high time that people get to know one of the geniuses who helped astronomers map out the past and future of galaxies.
Who Is Beatrice Tinsley?
Beatrice Muriel Hill was born on Jan. 27, 1941 in England. Her family moved to New Zealand after World War II. She attended the New Plymouth Girls' High School where she played the violin and led the girls' orchestra before she studied at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch for to get her Bachelors and Master's degree.
She became Beatrice Tinsley after marrying her classmate physicist Brian Tinsley. Because her husband was a faculty at the university, Beatrice was not given the opportunity to teach. They both moved to Dallas in 1963 where she also faced a similar situation when she was barred from teaching because her husband worked there. She completed her Ph.D. in 1966 at the University of Texas in Austin where she wrote her thesis titled "Evolution of Galaxies and its Significance for Cosmology."
How Beatrice Tinsley Fought Against The System
Tinsley's thesis gained her recognition and jealousy from her male peers but did not change her situation in Dallas. Despite proving her knowledge in the fields of astronomy and physics, she was still not offered an opportunity to teach because her husband already did. She ended up torn between pursuing a career in a different city and staying home to fulfill her roles as a wife and mother of two adopted children.
Beatrice divorced her husband in 1974. Considering how she had been barred from doing anything with her degree professionally due to her husband's work, it was not a selfish act but rather a way for Beatrice to immerse herself in the field of study she loves.
"The disconnect between her growing international reputation-which by the mid-1970s included visiting appointments at Caltech, Maryland, and UT Austin, and permanent job offers elsewhere-and the lack of tangible recognition at home became an immense source of frustration, as documented in letters to her father at that time," Astronomer Robert C. Kennicutt, Jr. wrote in his tribute.
After freeing herself from the marriage that barred her from exercising her professional freedom, Beatrice accepted a faculty position at Yale University in 1975. In a period of seven years, she published 60 papers on galactic and chemical evolution and cosmology.
Major Contributions
Beatrice lived in a time when computers were not around to make simulations and computations but that did not stop her from coming out with breakthrough contributions in the field of astronomy. She calculated models for the different galaxy types, how galaxies looked in the past and how they would look in the future. In addition, she gave new insight about the expansion of the universe and hypothesized on the possible role of dark matter in evolutionary trends, among many others. All of these were accomplished without the help of modern technology - she had to do the legwork of locating and reading journals and articles, collect evolutionary tracks and diagrams and do some reverse engineering herself because some theoretical data was not yet available.
However, just when she finally seemed to succeed, cancer struck. Of course, she didn't let that stop her. She still kept on working and writing her studies even until the days leading to her death in March 1981. In fact, her very last paper was submitted for publication just days before she succumbed to cancer.
So Who Is Beatrice Tinsley?
She is the genius astronomer who didn't let sexism stop her from literally reaching for the stars and showing everyone how those stars operate.
