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Hertha Ayrton Research Paper

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Born in 1854 and died in 1923, Marks was an English engineer, mathematician, and inventor. During her adulthood, she took the name of Hertha Ayrton. With a poor background forcing her to work, she became a governess, at the age of 16, to help her family. For her good luck, she met Madame Bodichon who helped her with pursuing her passion of studying.
Ayrton patented, in 1884, a line-divider that can divide a line into equal parts and enlarge and reduce figures. In 1888, due to health problems, she had to quit from Girton College, however, she gave a series of lectures for women in electricity the same year.
In the 1890’s, electric arcs were used for streetlights and public buildings but they represented a problem because of its hissing. Hertha and her husband decided to work for a solution to this problem but at one point all their notes were accidentally burned. While William was away, Hertha explained that the tendency to hiss of this method was caused when oxygen came into contact with the crater …show more content…

She was the first female to present her work in front of the Royal Society of London, and the first female member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1899. Although she was the first woman proposed for the fellowship of the Royal Society, she wasn’t accepted because as a married woman she had no legal existence in British law. In 1906 she was awarded the Hughes Medal, which is an award to recognize the original discoveries in the physical sciences, particularly electricity and magnetism on their applications; for her work concerning electricity. During her life, Ayrton registered 13 different patents on arc lamps.
As we can see, Hertha Ayrton represents not just an influential person in historical Electricity but she also contributes to the acceptance of women in engineering and societies that were meant to be just for

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