Josseline Ramos-Figueroa, PhD Student in Chemistry observes, Lonsdale assembled her own X-ray crystallography laboratory from scratch to solve a century-old mystery.
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A pamphlet written by Kathleen Lonsdale called “Prison for Women,” an account of her time imprisoned Photo: Via Wikimedia |
“I had never heard of Kathleen Lonsdale until today,” a professor wrote to me in a recent email. Though I’m a chemist, I hadn’t either.
A physicist by training, Kathleen Lonsdale is most famous for revealing the shape of the benzene ring — a molecular scaffold with unusual chemical properties that was considered a mystery to chemists for many years. She was the first to uncover the benzene ring’s dimensions and atomic structure. Lonsdale, who was recently commemorated by English Heritage with a London Blue Plaque on the 50th anniversary of her death, also played a fundamental role in establishing X-ray crystallography — technology discovered in the 20th century that allowed scientists to “see” atoms and their spatial arrangement within a molecule. The technique was later critical in the structural studies of a vast number of molecules.
Lonsdale was brilliant, hardworking, and adaptable. Born on January 28, 1903, in Newbridge, Ireland, Lonsdale was the youngest of ten children. Her love for math and physics started during her late school years...
It was a remarkable achievement at a time where all calculations had to be done by hand. But she didn’t stop there. Lonsdale next studied the structure of hexachlorobenzene, another benzene derivative, using an additional mathematical analysis known as the Fourier series. This work was well received by Ingold, who said, “The calculations must have been dreadful, but one paper like this brings more certainty into organic chemistry than generations of activity by us professionals.”
Source: Massive Science