Google Doodle Celebrates Jewish Inventor Hertha Ayrton
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Talya Zax April 28, 2016
Happy 162nd birthday, Hertha Marks Ayrton!
Ayrton, a British Jewish-born inventor — who was also an engineer, mathematician, and physicist, putting those of us proud of our double majors to shame — is the subject of today’s Google Doodle. Among her many achievements, Ayrton was the first woman to present a paper of her own writing to the British Institution of Electrical Engineers and the first woman to receive a prize from the Royal Society, which awarded her the Hughes Medal in 1906 in honor of her work on the electric arc (a common lighting technique) and ripples in sand and water.
An assertive, boundary-breaking, George Eliot-befriending (oh yeah, there’s that too) Jewish woman? That’s a birthday we can definitely celebrate.
Talya Zax is the Forward’s culture intern. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @TalyaZax
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