Book contents
- Women in the History of Quantum Physics
- Women in the History of Quantum Physics
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 The Spectrum of He+ as a Proving Ground for Bohr’s Model of the Atom: A Legacy of Williamina Fleming’s Astrophysical Discovery
- 2 H. Johanna van Leeuwen, the Other Scientist behind the Bohr–Van Leeuwen Theorem
- 3 Hertha Sponer, Maven of Quantum Spectroscopy
- 4 Angular and Career Momentum: What Lucy Mensing Contributed to Physics and Why She Left the Field
- 5 Discouraging Jane: Dewey Among the Lucky Generation of US Physicists
- 6 Laura Chalk and the Stark Effect
- 7 Elizabeth Monroe Boggs: From Quantum Chemistry to the Manhattan Project
- 8 Excelsior! John Wheeler, Katharine Way, and the Role of Women in the Exploration of the Microcosm
- 9 Sonja Ashauer from São Paulo to Cambridge: A Journey to Quantum Electrodynamics
- 10 Untangling Entanglement History: Early Quantum Contributions of Chien-Shiung Wu
- 11 From Quantum Physics to Ethics: Grete Hermann on Heisenberg’s Cut
- 12 Women Take the Lead: A Physics Laboratory Under the Dictatorship in Portugal, 1940s–1960s
- 13 Carolyn Parker’s Electronic Frequencies
- 14 The Chew–Low–Salzman Method and Freda Friedman Salzman: A Physicist Between Nuclear and Social Interactions
- 15 Out of the Ivory Tower: Maria Lluïsa Canut and X-Ray Crystallography
- 16 Ana María Cetto Kramis: Light in Quantum Mechanics and Open Science
- Index
- References
9 - Sonja Ashauer from São Paulo to Cambridge: A Journey to Quantum Electrodynamics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 July 2025
Book contents
- Women in the History of Quantum Physics
- Women in the History of Quantum Physics
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 The Spectrum of He+ as a Proving Ground for Bohr’s Model of the Atom: A Legacy of Williamina Fleming’s Astrophysical Discovery
- 2 H. Johanna van Leeuwen, the Other Scientist behind the Bohr–Van Leeuwen Theorem
- 3 Hertha Sponer, Maven of Quantum Spectroscopy
- 4 Angular and Career Momentum: What Lucy Mensing Contributed to Physics and Why She Left the Field
- 5 Discouraging Jane: Dewey Among the Lucky Generation of US Physicists
- 6 Laura Chalk and the Stark Effect
- 7 Elizabeth Monroe Boggs: From Quantum Chemistry to the Manhattan Project
- 8 Excelsior! John Wheeler, Katharine Way, and the Role of Women in the Exploration of the Microcosm
- 9 Sonja Ashauer from São Paulo to Cambridge: A Journey to Quantum Electrodynamics
- 10 Untangling Entanglement History: Early Quantum Contributions of Chien-Shiung Wu
- 11 From Quantum Physics to Ethics: Grete Hermann on Heisenberg’s Cut
- 12 Women Take the Lead: A Physics Laboratory Under the Dictatorship in Portugal, 1940s–1960s
- 13 Carolyn Parker’s Electronic Frequencies
- 14 The Chew–Low–Salzman Method and Freda Friedman Salzman: A Physicist Between Nuclear and Social Interactions
- 15 Out of the Ivory Tower: Maria Lluïsa Canut and X-Ray Crystallography
- 16 Ana María Cetto Kramis: Light in Quantum Mechanics and Open Science
- Index
- References
Summary
Sonja Ashauer (1923–1948) trained as a physicist at the University of São Paulo in Brazil and obtained a PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics from the University of Cambridge, under the guidance of Paul Dirac. Acknowledged as the first Brazilian woman with a physics PhD, her life was brief: She passed away six months after defending her thesis. In her few contributions, she explored the non-physical consequences of classical equations for point electrons, reformulated by Dirac in the late 1930s to address divergence issues in quantum electrodynamics. This chapter traces Ashauer’s journey from São Paulo, where she collaborated with a small and enthusiastic group of young researchers around the Italian–Russian physicist Gleb Wataghin and focused on cosmic ray physics research, to Cambridge, where she found a more secluded research environment.
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- Information
- Women in the History of Quantum PhysicsBeyond <i>Knabenphysik</i>, pp. 250 - 276Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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