Top Ten Geek Girls

TurboPatrol writes "CNET have published a list of the Top Ten Girl Geeks throughout history. The winners include the elegant Ada Byron (the world's first computer programmer), Grace Hopper (invented the compiler) and Lisa Simpson (invented the perpetual motion machine — well, in the world of cartoons). Some of the entries are fascinating, for example Marie Curie apparently used to carry plutonium in her jacket pockets. Have they missed anyone out?" At least two entries on the list are stupid. I guess someone thought they were funny.

Comments

Plutonium? Unlikely

[91degrees]

Plutonium was created in the 1940's. Marie Curie died in the 1930's.

What is interesting, in a disturbiung way, is that Marie Curies workbooks that she used while discovering radium are still considered dangerously radioactive.

Hedy Lamar

[Hazrek]

Seriously, Paris Hilton and Lisa Simpson, but they snubbed Hedy Lamar? I mean seriously, how can you top a gorgeous movie star geek?

Hedy Lamarr (November 9, 1913 - January 19, 2000) was an Austrian/American actress and communications technology innovator. Though known primarily for her great beauty, she also co-invented the first form of spread spectrum, a key to modern wireless communication.

Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil received U.S. patent #2,292,387 for their Secret Communication System. This early version of frequency hopping used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam. The patent was little-known until recently because Lamarr applied for it under her then-married name of Hedy Kiesler Markey. Neither Lamarr nor Antheil made any money from the patent. It had expired by the time the U.S. military barely began using this system after 1962. It took electronics technology a long time to catch up with the concept.

Lamarr's frequency-hopping idea served as the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology used in devices ranging from cordless telephones to WiFi Internet connections. In 1997, the two of them received an EFF Pioneer Award for the invention.

Now that's hot, Paris.

Where TF is....

[gr8_phk]

Sophie Germain was quite the math geek - even has a type of prime number named after her. Had to use a psedonym because women weren't supposed to be mathematicians back then. Clearly the folks who wrote the article didn't do any real research.

Re:Real geeks only please

[kfg]

For that matter, Mary Shelly wasn't a geek girl, she was a "creative type" who be a Mac owner today. Frankenstein is her magnum opus, reductio ad absurdum attack on geeks.

She was only eighteen and a "popular girl" when she started writing the book. i.e., she's that bitch in the hall who pointed at your nerdiness, giggled and made rude comments about your "high waters" and Teva sandels with socks.

KFG

Re:Grace Hopper

[theAtomicFireball]

A woman invented COBOL? This does not surprise me. *ducks*

Actually, no, the article is wrong. Grace Hopper did many incredible things, but she didn't actually invent COBOL. She did, however, come up with the idea that computer programming languages could be designed that were more like English and, thus, be easier to use. I would say that is a much greater accomplishment. She also created a language called FLOW-MATIC that was a precursor to COBOL, and which strongly influenced the CODASYSL committe who created COBOL. So, COBOL was created by a committee (of men), but many of the basic concepts and ideas that are fundamental to most of the technology you use today was, in fact, invented by a pretty damn amazing woman.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt

[Boadi]

Back when computation and observational astronomy were considered "women's work," Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovered the standard candle which lets us judge the distance of galaxies. At the time, many believed that the other galaxies were just nebulae.

She expanded our universe from a large number of stars, to an enormous multigalactic system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Leavitt

Hedy Lamarr

[DaChesserCat]

She was originally married to a German weapons supplier. Consequently, she knew about things like tanks and torpedoes.

Came up with what we now call frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology, trying to make a torpedo which could be directed after launch, but couldn't be jammed.

Reasonably good actress. Brainy as all hell. Drop-dead gorgeous.

Now THERE'S a Geek Girl rolemodel who simply needs better publicity.

Paris Hilton? BAH! Asia Carrera!

[Vrallis]

Whoever put Paris Hilton on the list needs to be shot. If you want a REAL geek girl who also shows the goods go for (SFW), the self-described "nerd of porn."

You've got to be kidding

[BigGar']

Let's see here:
Ada Byron: Worlds first programmer on Charles Babbage's computer.
Val Tereshkova: Cosmonaut, Hero of Russia, Crater named for her on the moon.
Grace Hopper: Inventor of the Mark 1 Calculator; COBOL; really found the first computer "bug"
Rosalind Franklin: Expert in DNA and crystallography; probably should have receive a Nobel prize.
Marie Curie: Won TWO Nobel Prizes discovered Radium & Polonium.
Mary Shelley: Author of Frankenstein the archetypal geek gone mad story.

A fairly impressive list.
Next Up
Daryl Hanna: Acted in Blade Runner & Attack of the 50 foot woman, designed two board games.
Lisa Simpson: Fictitious, doesn't count. get it off the list.
Aleks Krotoski:Expert in the social psychology of virtual worlds, writer for the Guardian
Paris Hilton:Huh?

Aleks might be able to stay, on the list but the rest gotta go. DAryl might be a geek but come on top ten?

Here are some suggestions for additions to the list:
Maria Mayer: Nobel Prize in Physics. Determined the "shell" structure of the atom.
Jewel Cobb:Studied the effects of chemotherapy non-cancerous cells. Received 41 honorary doctorates.
Evelyn Granville:Second woman in the USA to receive a PhD in mathematics. Worked for IBM on the team that developed the formulation of orbit computations and computer procedures for NASA.

Or to go OLD school:
Theano: Wife of Pythagoras. Worked on the formula to derive Golden Rectangle.