Volunteer Maria Wins the Nobel Prize in Physics
On top of Maria’s volunteer assistant professor rule at the University of Chicago, she also took on a part-time position at the Argonne National Laboratory. At this location, Maria was a senior physicist. While Maria felt like she didn’t know much about nuclear physics when she received the position, she dove into her role and soon found herself programming the Aberdeen Proving Ground’s ENIAC. This program used the Monte Carlo method to help solve problems with the liquid metal cooling reactor.
One of the most significant career milestones Maria accomplished was while she worked at the University of Chicago and the Argonne National Laboratory. Here she worked on research for the development of the structure for nuclear shells by creating a mathematical formula to advance her research. Her research stated why the magical numbers of 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82, and 126 create stable configurations. Maria would go on to publish her results from the research during the 1950s.
During this same time, other scientists, Otto Haxel, J. Hans Suess, and Hans D. Jensen were working on the same type of research. Maria handed in her results for review in February 1949, and the three other scientists handed their results in for critique in April 1949. While Haxel, Suess, and Jensen’s findings were published in June of 1949 in the Physical Review, Maria’s results received publication later. Around this time. Maria, Haxel, Suess, and Jensen all got together in order to advance their research.
With the findings of their combined research, Haxel, Suess, Jensen, and Maria published a book in 1950 called the Elementary Theory of Nuclear Shell Structure. In 1963, Maria along with Jensen would receive the Noble Prize in Physics for their research. The research the prize focused on was their scientists’ discoveries with the nuclear shell structure. Maria became the second woman to accept the Noble Prize in Physics. No other woman would go on to receive the Noble Prize in Physics until 2018 when Donna Strickland became a recipient.
Even though Maria suffered a stroke in the early 1960s, she continued teaching as a professor at the University of California, San Diego for years. In 1965, Maria became elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She passed away on February 20, 1972, in San Diego, California after suffering a heart attack. Not too long after her death, the American Physical Society established the Maria Goeppert Mayer Award, which is awarded to young women in the Physics field. She also received an induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1996.
Where Did We Find This Stuff? Here Are Our Sources:
“Maria Goeppert Mayer Biographical.” Nobel Prize.
“Maria Goeppert Mayer.” Encyclopedia Britannica. February 2019.