Eunice Newton Foote showed how gas tubes heated up when exposed to sunlight in research published in 1856, but the relevance of her study was not recognised at the time.
The subject of today's Google Doodle is Eunice Newton Foote, who made the greenhouse effect discovery and played a significant role in women's rights campaigns.
Scientist John Tyndall, who conducted a series of tests in 1859 to examine how heat impacted air, is frequently credited with discovering the greenhouse effect. The American Association for the Advancement of Science's 10th annual conference was held in 1856, two years before Tyndall's experiments began. However, in 2011, amateur historian Raymond Sorenson found a record of a presentation of Foote's work at this event.
Foote's studies looking at how tubes containing various gases, such as oxygen, air, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide, warmed when exposed to sunlight were documented in the paper, which is also the first instance of a physics publication by a female scientist. "The highest effect of the sun's rays I have found to be in carbonic acid gas," which is largely carbon dioxide, was her conclusion.
She continued by speculating that "our earth would have a high temperature if that gas were in its atmosphere."
The fact that Joseph Henry, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, delivered Foote's work as the presentation suggests that the scientists in attendance may not have understood the significance of her findings. Henry later stated that "Although the experiments were interesting and valuable, there were [many difficulties] encompassing [any] attempt to interpret their significance."
Foote was born in 1819 to Theriza Newton and Isaac Newton Jr, a distant relative of the renowned physicist. Foote was a significant activist in the US women's rights movement, campaigning for the universal right to vote, among other things. She was a founding signatory to a manifesto known as the Declaration of Sentiments. This was written at the first women-organized women's rights conference at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.
foote received her education at the Troy Female Seminary, a ground-breaking boarding institution for women founded by the feminist Emma Willard. Students from the seminary were urged to enrol in scientific classes at the nearby Rensselaer School, taught by senior professor and advocate for women's education Amos Eaton. Instead of rote memorization, Eaton's revolutionary teaching techniques comprised lectures on scientific theory combined with actual laboratory practice. These institutions housed foote from 1836 until 1838.
Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps, Willard's sister, served as the seminary's associate principal when Foote was enrolled. She created the curriculum and textbooks for the pupils. Prior to the weekly meeting when their moral gaps were discussed, students had the opportunity to contest their grades. Students studied ballet, history, languages (English, French, Italian, Latin), literature, mathematics (general, algebra, geometry), music, painting, philosophy, rhetoric, and science (botany, home science), as opposed to the traditional finishing school courses provided to girls. Foote studied research methods and laboratory testing at the Rensselaer School. The institution offered courses in chemistry, geography, meteorology, and natural philosophy to its female students.
After her trials in 1856, Foote didn't engage in much more scientific study, although she did conduct tests a few years later to determine which gases might generate static electricity. Before she passed away in 1888, she also submitted a number of patent applications, including one for a cooking stove with a thermostat.
References:
- https://www.newscientist.com/article/2382758-eunice-newton-foote-the-woman-who-discovered-the-greenhouse-effect/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Newton_Foote