Evening star., 1939-03-05

z3ss73
p YP TO few weeks ago (the twenty
seventh of last December, to be exact)
~ Katharine Burr Blodgett was known
to few except very small circle of scien-
lists. But on the morning of the twenty
seventh, the whole world woke up to hear
of her.
All over the world was flashed the news
that invisible glass" had been discovered,
and that she was its discoverer.
What on earth" the world demanded, ''is
invisible glass'?" There was prompt answer
to that question. But there hasn't been an
answer to the simultaneous question, "Whois
Katharine Burr Blodgett?'
Travelled to Schenectady in order to have
DR.. Blodgett herself answer that question.
Invisible glass" might or might not be a
miracle. The fact that woman was its dis
coverer, the fact that a woman had been sue
cessfully working in the mysterious realms of
pure science, was certainly miracle.
For the number of women who achieve
distinction in that unknown country, the
Himalayas of the human mind, is small in
deed With the single exception of the late
Nine. Curie who, with her husband, toiled
to uncover the mysteries of radium - can the
man in the street readily think of the name of
any great woman scientist? Was there here,
one wondered, new candidate for the Nobel
Prize?
Katharine Blodgett is young woman. She
was very young woman indeed when,
twenty years ago, she first came to work as
an assistant in the Research Laboratory of the
General Electric Company, at Schenectady.
She looks just as youthful today.
The opening of the doors of that laboratory
to a woman was without precedent. The
men who have successfully conducted its
studies - Willis R. Whitney and William D.
Coolidge, as directors, and Irving Langmuir,
as associate director-are giants in the starry
skies of American science. Kindly and cour-
teous giants, but girl must understand their
language, or she couldn't be permitted there.
Just before Katharine Blodgett came to
work in that laboratory, with DR.. Langmuir,
he announced that he had succeeded in max
ing and measuring an oil film composed Of
single layer of molecules. This meant that the
film was no more than one ten-millionth of an
inch in thickness. 1t was of course, invisible.
Visualize it? You might as we'll stand on the
summit of Mt Mckinley and try to measure
the thickness of cobweb on blade of grass
twenty thousand feet below you.
That experiment was to have vital effect
on the career of the girl who was so soon to
enter the laboratory and become his assistant.
BY what lucky path did she arrive there?
First she had been born in that very city,
and her father had been the lawyer in charge
of the General Electric Company's depart
ment of patents. He had died few weeks
before her birth. Her mother, remarkable
woman. brought up her two children single
handed. She sent her son through school, COL
lege and law school. She sent her daughter,
Katharine, through private school in New
York City. and then to Bryn Mawr
At Bryn Mawr, Katharine displayed an
astonishing grasp of abstruse mathematics,
science essential for one who is to advance in
the study of physics and chemistry. She be-
came deeply interested in optics, the science of
light. She studied physics under James Barnes.
one of Americas noted teachers of science.
Graduating brilliantly, she took post