塞西莉亚·佩恩-加波施金Cecilia Helena Payne Gaposchkin

佩恩-加波施金 佩恩-加波施金-塞西莉亚·佩恩-加波施金被命名为佩恩-加波施金 佩恩-加波施金 佩恩-加波施金。她在嫁给Sergi Gaposchkin时改名为佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金。为简单起见，我们在本传记中通篇使用名字佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金。她的父母是Edward John 佩恩-加波施金（1844-1904）和Emma Leonora 佩恩-加波施金 Pertz。Edward 佩恩-加波施金是牛津大学的律师、音乐家和学者，晚年才离开牛津的会士职位与Emma Pertz结婚。结婚后，他们在Wendover的Holywell Lodge定居，他的祖先曾在那里耕种土地。虽然Edward 佩恩-加波施金是英国人，但他出生在俄罗斯。Emma Pertz是Emma Wilkinson和雅各布·赫尔曼 Pertz的女儿，是德国人。她有一个姐姐Florence，是一位职业钢琴家。Edward 佩恩-加波施金在佩恩-加波施金四岁时去世。他被发现溺死在Wendover的一条运河中，其死亡情况不明。佩恩-加波施金有一个兄弟Humfry 佩恩-加波施金（1902-1936），后来成为考古学家，还有一个姐妹Leonora Florence Mary 佩恩-加波施金（1904-1996）。

当她六岁时，佩恩-加波施金开始就读于Wendover当地的一所学校，这所学校刚刚在她家对面开张。学校由Elizabeth Edwards管理，她提供了良好的教育。佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金写道[1]：-

我在她学校度过的六年里，爱德华兹小姐给了我丰富的教育。我有时觉得她教给了我所有需要知道的东西。12岁时，我能说法语和德语，有基本的拉丁语知识，并完全掌握了算术。几何和代数是我们学习的一部分，我尤其喜欢解二次方程。

然而，也存在问题。她是左撇子，却被迫用右手写字。此外，从她很小的时候起，她就因生活在一个男人的世界而感到压抑。佩恩-加波施金非常有音乐天赋，是一位有天赋的钢琴家，但音乐在她的学校教育中并未发挥作用。

当佩恩-加波施金十二岁时，全家搬到了伦敦，主要是为了让她的兄弟汉弗莱能够接受教育，为他进入一所独立学校做准备。她就读的学校，帕丁顿的圣玛丽学院，与温多弗的爱德华兹小姐学校非常不同。这是一所大型的英国国教学校，在教学和参加礼拜中都强烈强调宗教。她写道[1]：-

我花了几十年时间才克服在一个善意但偏执的氛围中产生的怨恨和疑虑。

就数学和科学而言，新学校令人失望。她已经喜欢几何和代数，却不得不回到长除法的课程。在第一年，根本没有科学课。从很小的时候起，佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金就想成为一名科学家，此时对植物学最感兴趣，但由于学校没有帮助，她转向自己家里的书籍。这些书属于她的亲戚，他们主要是历史学家，所以没有什么能引起她的兴趣。然而，她确实找到了一本艾萨克·牛顿的Principia，并开始学习。不得不说，这不是数学的最佳入门！当她进入第二年时，情况有所改善，有了代数和欧几里得的课程。一位新的科学老师多萝西·达尔格利什看到佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金想学习比二年级学生所上的几节课更多的科学，于是借给她物理书，并带她去博物馆。

1914年，当她14岁时，第一次世界大战爆发。由于母亲出生在德国，佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金感到非常不安。也许更糟糕的是，她的数学老师达尔格利什小姐生病并离开了教学。她写道[1]：-

接下来的几年是一段混乱而不快乐的时光。我坚持必须学习高等数学和德语（这两者对科学家来说都是必要的），而学校里没有其他女孩有这样的需要或要求。……最后，一位和善的老师辅导我学习德语。我独自开始了微积分和坐标几何的学习，数学具有了一种神秘的意义。

然而，最终她被分配给一位令人不快的数学老师，这位老师告诉她，她永远不会成为一名学者。学校让她离开，去另一所学校。她说，这是他们给她的最大帮助。

1918年，她进入位于哈默史密斯布鲁克格林的圣保罗女子学校，在那里她受到鼓励学习科学。此外，学校还允许她发展自己对音乐的另一种热情。音乐老师是著名作曲家古斯塔夫·霍尔斯特，他让佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金加入了学校管弦乐队，教她指挥，并敦促她成为音乐家。这非常诱人，但最终她对科学的热爱占了上风。她喜欢艾薇·彭德尔伯里教的物理，包括力学、动力学、电与磁、光学、热力学和一点天文学。尽管只有一年时间准备剑桥奖学金考试，而且起点背景相当差，1919年她还是获得了玛丽·尤尔德自然科学奖学金，并于1919年9月在剑桥大学纽纳姆学院开始了大学生活。她赢得了唯一一项足以支付她全部费用的公开奖学金。

尽管这种组合不寻常，佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金还是被允许学习植物学、物理学和化学。她发现植物学令人失望，也没有从讲师那里得到任何鼓励。尽管她在植物学上坚持了一年，但她决定要专注于物理科学。她发现物理学令人愉悦，尤其是尼尔斯·玻尔关于原子的一门讲座课程。然而，她写道[1]：-

他的口音使他的论述几乎无法理解；他无休止地提到我记录为“汤群”的东西，后来才更正为“子群”。

使佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金转向天文学的事件是亚瑟·爱丁顿的一次讲座。见THIS LINK。

讲座后的第二天，她放弃了生物学，专注于物理学。尽管她不能转到天文学，因为它是数学荣誉学位考试的一部分，而她参加的是自然科学荣誉学位考试，但她被允许参加所有的天文学讲座。然而，她把物理学作为主修科目，并尽可能多地参加天文学课程。她开始使用纽纳姆学院天文台进行观测。1923年，她获得了学士学位，尽管大部分时间花在天文学上——一门她并未被考试的科目——但表现优异。她认为自己除了成为学校教师别无选择，于是被带去伦敦参加哈罗·沙普利的讲座，哈罗·沙普利是哈佛学院天文台台长。讲座后她与哈罗·沙普利交谈，他鼓励她在哈佛学院天文台度过一年。亚瑟·爱丁顿写了一封推荐信，其中他说（例如见[43]）：-

她获得了包括天文学在内的物理科学的广泛知识，并在工作中具备精力和热情这些宝贵品质……我相信她是那种一旦有机会就会将毕生献给天文学的人，她不会在几年训练后就想要离开去结婚。

她设法筹集到足够的资助，随后在1923年成为马萨诸塞州剑桥市哈佛大学的全国研究研究员，并隶属于哈佛学院天文台。在8的访谈中，她解释了自己如何着手进行这项导致她著名学位论文的工作，这项工作并非哈罗·沙普利所暗示她从事的内容：-

哈罗·沙普利非常鼓励人，非常和善且乐于助人，他总是对每个人在做什么和想什么感兴趣。但我记得在[将电离方程应用于光谱]几个月后他对我说：“你为什么不把一些小东西整理出来发表呢？”我说：“我不想那样做，我会把那视为失败的承认，我想把整件事整合起来。”真正激励我的是我在离开英格兰剑桥之前听到的关于次年约翰·柯西·亚当斯奖主题的公告——主题是高温下物质的研究。告诉我这件事的人评论说，这当然是针对拉尔夫·福勒的，因为他们想让拉尔夫·福勒把他的东西写出来。我对自己说：“我要写一篇关于高温下物质观测研究的论文，”你会在《恒星大气》的标题页上看到这些话，这就是它出现在那里的原因。我没指望获得约翰·柯西·亚当斯奖；我非常怀疑女性是否有资格。但我对自己说：“至少我要对这个主题作出与某人将要写并获奖的理论论文一样好、一样有价值的贡献。”所以我当时相当有雄心，现在看起来有点好笑。

她的结果使她得出结论：氢和氦是恒星中迄今为止最常见的元素，这一观点与当时认为恒星成分与地球相似的观点相矛盾。她包含这些结果的论文草稿，特别是表明恒星中氢比金属丰富一百万倍，被寄给著名天文学家Henry Norris Russell，他回复说这“显然不可能”。佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金是正确的，但屈从于著名天文学家Russell的观点，并添加了以下内容：-

恒星大气中这些元素所推导出的巨大丰度几乎肯定不是真实的。也许对于氢，这一结果可以被视为其异常行为的另一个方面……而氦……可能出于类似原因而偏离。

她于1925年因学位论文Stellar atmospheres: A Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars获得拉德克利夫学院博士学位，该论文作为一本书出版。在哈佛天文台以研究员身份工作两年后，她知道自己想留在那里，并被任命为研究员。她从1925年到1927年担任这一职位，随后被任命为哈罗·沙普利的技术助理。这份工作报酬很低，与她的专业知识和成就完全不相称，但至少她能够拥有自己的家。由于几项成就，她没有得到认可，因为被说服不发表。例如，1925年她在最热恒星的光谱中检测到斯塔克效应，但Russell和哈罗·沙普利都持怀疑态度，她没有发表。她还被说服不发表关于星际吸收的文章。这两项都在几年后由其他人确立。2002年2月，在庆祝佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金的成就时，哈佛大学文理学院院长Jeremy Knowles说（见[39]）：-

佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金最引人注目的科学贡献是发现氢在宇宙中的丰度比其他任何元素高出数百万倍。每个高中生都知道艾萨克·牛顿发现了引力，达尔文发现了进化论，甚至知道阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦发现了相对论。但说到我们宇宙的组成，教科书只是说宇宙中最普遍的元素是氢。从来没有人想过我们是怎么知道的。……获得博士学位后，她在天文学系授课，但她的课程没有列入课程目录。她没有正式身份却指导研究生研究；她没有研究休假；她微薄的薪水被系里归类为‘设备’。然而她挺了过来，并且蓬勃发展。

她于1930年发表了The stars of high luminosity。恩斯特·厄皮克写道[24]：-

1930年我第一次访问哈佛天文台时，佩恩-加波施金小姐应哈罗·沙普利之邀已在那里待了好几年。我们成了亲密的朋友，在天文学和音乐（包括作曲）方面有着共同的兴趣，许多夜晚我们一起度过，要么在音乐厅，要么在她与弗朗西丝·赖特小姐合住的家中，我在那里弹钢琴——贝多芬、穆索尔斯基，还有我自己的作品。

1931年，佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金成为美国公民，然而1932-33年的悲剧事件改变了她的生活。1932年夏天，她的密友之一、天文台的同事阿德莱德·艾姆斯在一次划独木舟事故中溺水身亡。接着在1933年5月的两天里，她得知两位密友的死讯：与她有共同音乐兴趣的比尔·沃特福德在南非的一场摩托车事故中丧生，而她在纽纳姆学院最亲密的朋友贝蒂·利夫也不幸去世。她写道[1]：-

阿德莱德和贝蒂——所有我所不是的，美丽、精致、受人爱戴——都死了，而我还活着。我向世界敞开心扉的决心，得到了我认为是不可避免的结果。

她计划访问北欧的天文台。首先抵达英国时，她被告知德国的政治局势，但她没有意识到其严重性。继续旅程，她去了莱顿、哥本哈根、斯德哥尔摩，这些都是愉快的访问，但她想进行一次更雄心勃勃的旅行，前往普尔科沃。她乘船到芬兰，从赫尔辛基乘水上飞机到雷瓦尔。从那里她去了塔尔图的弗劳恩霍夫天文台，在那里，当她说要去俄罗斯时，她收到了强烈的警告不要去。然而，她乘火车去了列宁格勒，然后前往普尔科沃。她写道[1]：-

我在普尔科沃待了两周，却感觉仿佛经历了一生。那种紧张的气氛从未消散。这不仅仅是因为这位担任一座伟大天文台台长的人所过的单调而肮脏的生活条件。也不仅仅是因为食物的匮乏……每个人都心怀恐惧——害怕说话，唯恐被人偷听。

她回到柏林，又前往哥廷根参加天文学会的一次会议，但这里的气氛同样紧张。一个年轻人Sergei Gaposchkin找到了她，他正努力成为一名天文学家，却在纳粹的迫害下苦苦挣扎。回到美国后，她设法为Sergei Gaposchkin办到了签证。他于1933年11月抵达美国，1934年3月，佩恩-加波施金、佩恩-加波施金和Sergei Gaposchkin结了婚。他们有三个孩子：爱德华（1935年出生）、凯瑟琳（1937年出生）和彼得（1940年出生）。从1935年起，佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金开始与丈夫合作发表论文，他们合著的第一本书是Variable stars（1938年）。事实上，她似乎总共发表了约350篇出版物。

1943年，她出版了The Scholar and the World，其中生动地记述了佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金如何看待世界以及天文学如何融入其中。从文本来看，它似乎写于第二次世界大战爆发之前。我们在THIS LINK给出了文本的摘录。

其中一本比较重要的教科书是Introduction to astronomy（1954年）。这本书对我[EFR]意义重大，因为我在20世纪60年代初还是学生时买了它。我至今仍保留着我的那本，并在THIS LINK转载了序言和导言的摘录。

最终，佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金获得了一个与她的贡献更相称的职位。1938年，她被授予天文学家的头衔，不久之后，成为哈佛大学天文台的菲利普斯天文学家。她一直担任这一职位，直到1956年被任命为哈佛大学天文学教授，成为哈佛大学第一位女教授。1956年至1960年，她担任哈佛大学天文学系主任，成为第一位担任系主任的女性。1965年她退休，次年成为哈佛大学荣休教授。然而，她退休后并没有停止工作，从1967年起在史密森天体物理台工作，直到1979年去世。

佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金获得了许多荣誉。1934年，她获得美国天文学会颁发的安妮·坎农奖；1936年当选为美国哲学会会员；1943年当选为美国艺术与科学院会员；1952年获得拉德克利夫学院颁发的功绩奖；1961年被富兰克林研究所授予戴维·里滕豪斯奖章。多所学院授予她荣誉理学博士学位：威尔逊学院（1942年）；史密斯学院（1943年）；西部学院（1951年）；科尔比学院（1958年）；以及费城女子医学院（1961年）。1976年，美国天文学会授予她亨利·诺里斯·罗素奖：-

……to commemorate a lifetime of pre-eminence in astronomical research.

在接受该奖项时，佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金说道：——

年轻科学家的回报，是成为世界历史上第一个看到某种事物或理解某种事物的人所带来的情感激动。没有什么能比得上那种体验……年长科学家的回报，则是看到一幅模糊的草图逐渐成长为壮丽风景的感觉。

佩恩-加波施金-佩恩-加波施金和丈夫在20世纪70年代经常旅行。他们访问了印度、日本、夏威夷、特立尼达和多巴哥、阿拉斯加、埃及和西班牙。她死于肺癌，该病是在1979年8月确诊的，此前她与丈夫进行了一次旅行，从塔希提岛到澳大利亚再到印度，又到土耳其，然后提前返回美国。

在她去世的那一年，她出版了一部私人印刷的自传，题为The Dyer's Hand.。该书在Katherine Haramundanis（编），Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections（剑桥大学出版社，1984年）中重新出版。我们在THIS LINK给出了一些关于这部作品非常有趣的评论摘录。

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin's was given the name Cecilia Helena Payne. She changed her name to Payne-Gaposchkin when she married Sergi Gaposchkin. For simplicity, we will use name Payne-Gaposchkin throughout this biography. Her parents were Edward John Payne (1844-1904) and Emma Leonora Helena Pertz. Edward Payne was a lawyer, musician and a scholar at the University of Oxford, only leaving his Oxford fellowship late in life to marry Emma Pertz. After marrying they settled down at Holywell Lodge in Wendover, where his ancestors had farmed the land. Although English, Edward Payne had been born in Russia. Emma Pertz, the daughter of Emma Wilkinson and Hermann Pertz, was German. She had a sister Florence who was a professional pianist. Edward Payne died when Cecilia was four years old. He was found drowned in a canal at Wendover and the circumstances of his death are unclear. Cecilia had a brother Humfry Payne (1902-1936) who became an archaeologist, and a sister Leonora Florence Mary Payne (1904-1996).

When she was six years old, Cecilia began to attend a local school in Wendover which had just opened across the street from where she lived. The school was run by Elizabeth Edwards who provided a good education. Payne-Gaposchkin writes [1]:-

In six years that I spent at her school, Miss Edwards gave me a rich education. I sometimes think she taught me all I needed to know. At 12 I could speak French and German, had a basic knowledge of Latin and a full command of arithmetic. Geometry and algebra were part of our studies and I delighted especially in the solution of quadratic equations.

However, there were problems. She was left-handed yet forced to write with her right hand. Also, from the time she was a young child, she was oppressed with a sense of living in a man's world. Cecilia was very musical and was a gifted pianist but music did not play a part in her school education.

When Cecilia was twelve years old the family moved to London, mainly so that her brother Humfry could receive an education which would prepare him for attending an independent school. The school she attended, St Mary's College, Paddington, was very different from Miss Edwards' school in Wendover. It was a large Church of England school with a strong emphasis on religion, both in teaching and in attending chapel. She wrote [1]:-

It has taken me many decades to overcome the resentments and doubts engendered in a well-meaning but bigoted atmosphere.

The new school was a disappointment as far as mathematics and science were concerned. Already enjoying geometry and algebra, she had to go back to classes on long division. In her first year, there were no science lessons at all. From a very young age Payne-Gaposchkin had wanted to be a scientist, being at this time most interested in botany, but with no help from her school she turned to the books in her own home. These books had belonged to her relations who were mainly historians so there was little to interest her. However, she did find a copy of Newton's Principia which she began to study. Not, one would have to say, the best introduction to mathematics! When she reached second year, things improved with lessons on algebra and Euclid. A new science teacher, Dorothy Dalglish, saw that Payne-Gaposchkin wanted to learn more science than was in the few lessons given to second year pupils so she lent her physics books and took her to museums.

In 1914, when she was 14 years old, the First World War started. With a mother who had been born in Germany, Payne-Gaposchkin felt very uncomfortable. Perhaps even worse, her mathematics teacher Miss Dalglish became ill and left teaching. She wrote [1]:-

The next few years were a confused and unhappy time. I insisted that I must learn advanced mathematics and German (for both would be necessary to a scientist), and no other girl in the school had any such needs or requirements. ... Finally a kindly teacher tutored me in German. I undertook the study of calculus and coordinate geometry by myself, and mathematics took on a kind of mystical significance.

However, eventually she was assigned to an unpleasant mathematics teacher who told her she would never become a scholar. The school told her to leave and go to another school. This, she said, was the greatest service they gave her.

In 1918 she entered St Paul's Girls' School, Brook Green, Hammersmith where she was encouraged to study science. In addition, the school allowed her to develop her other passion of music. The music master was Gustav Holst, the famous composer, and he had Payne-Gaposchkin join the school orchestra, taught her to conduct, and urged her to become a musician. This was very tempting but in the end her love for science prevailed. She loved the physics taught by Ivy Pendlebury which included mechanics, dynamics, electricity and magnetism, light, thermodynamics and a little astronomy. Despite having only one year to prepare for the Cambridge Scholarship examination, starting from a rather poor background, in 1919 she was awarded the Mary Eward Scholarship for Natural Sciences and began her university studies at Newnham College Cambridge in September 1919. She had won the only open scholarship which was sufficiently valuable to cover all her expenses.

Although the combination was unusual, Payne-Gaposchkin was allowed to study botany, physics and chemistry. She found botany a disappointment and was given no encouragement by her lecturers. Although she persevered with botany for a year she decided that she wanted to concentrate on physical science. She found physics a delight, particularly a lecture course on the atom by Niels Bohr. However, she wrote [1]:-

His discourse was rendered almost incomprehensible by his accent; there were endless references to what I recorded as 'soup groups', only later amended to 'subgroups'.

The event which turned Payne-Gaposchkin to astronomy was a lecture by Arthur Eddington. See THIS LINK.

The day after the lecture she gave up biology and concentrated on physics. She was allowed to attend all the astronomy lectures although she could not transfer to that subject since it was part of the Mathematical Tripos and she was on the Natural Sciences Tripos. However, she made physics her main subject and took all the astronomy courses she could. She began to make observations using the Newnham College Observatory. She was awarded a B.A. degree in 1923 performing well despite spending most of her time on astronomy, a subject on which she was not examined. Thinking that she had no other option but to become a school teacher, she was taken to a lecture in London given by Harlow Shapley, the Director of the Harvard College Observatory. She spoke to Shapley after the lecture and he encouraged her to spend a year at Harvard College Observatory. Eddington wrote a reference in which he said (see for example [43]):-

She has attained a wide knowledge of physical science including astronomy, and possesses the valuable qualities of energy and enthusiasm in her work ... I believe that she is the type of person who, given the opportunity, would devote her whole life to astronomy and she would not want to run away after a few years' training to get married.

She managed to gather sufficient financial support and, later in 1923 became a National Research Fellow at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, becoming affiliated to the Harvard College Observatory. In the interview [8] she explained how she came to undertake the work which led to her famous thesis, work which was not what Shapley suggested she undertook:-

[Shapley] was very encouraging, very kind and helpful, and he was always interested in what everyone was doing and thinking. But I remember his saying to me after some months [of applying the ionization equation to spectra], "Why don't you get some little thing together and publish it?" And I said, "I don't want to do that, I should regard that as a confession of failure, I want to get this whole thing together." What really inspired me was the announcement which I had heard before I left Cambridge, England, on the subject of the Adams Prize for the following year - the subject was the study of matter at high temperatures. The person who told me this remarked that this of course was aimed at R H Fowler, because they wanted to get R H Fowler to write up his stuff. And I said to myself, "I will write a paper on the observational study of matter at high temperatures," which words you will find on the title page of "Stellar Atmospheres" and that is the reason why it was there. I didn't expect to get the Adams Prize; I very much doubt whether a woman would be eligible. But I said to myself, "At least I am going to make a contribution to the subject as good and as valuable as the theoretical paper somebody is going to write and get the prize with," So I was pretty ambitious, it seems funny now.

Her results led her to the conclusion that hydrogen and helium were by far the most common elements in stars, a view which contradicted that of the time which believed that stars would have a similar composition to the Earth. A draft of her paper containing these results, in particular showing that hydrogen was a million times more abundant that the metals in stars, was sent to the leading astronomer Henry Norris Russell who replied that this was "clearly impossible." Payne-Gaposchkin was correct but bowed to the view of the leading astronomer Russell and added the following:-

The enormous abundances derived for those elements in the stellar atmosphere are almost certainly not real. Probably the result may be considered, for hydrogen, as another aspect of its abnormal behaviour ... and helium ... possibly deviates for similar reasons.

She received a Ph.D. from Radcliffe College in 1925 for her thesis Stellar atmospheres: A Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars which was published as a book. After two years at Harvard Observatory on a fellowship she knew she wanted to stay there and was appointed as a research fellow. She held this position from 1925 to 1927 when she was appointed as Technical Assistant to Harlow Shapley. This was poorly paid and was in no way appropriate for her expertise and achievements but at least she was able to have a home of her own. For several of her achievements she received no credit having been persuaded not to publish. For example in 1925 she detected the Stark effect in the spectra of the hottest stars but both Russell and Shapley were sceptical and she did not publish. She was also persuaded not to publish on interstellar absorption. Both were established a few years later by others. Jeremy Knowles, dean of the Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences in February 2002 when Payne-Gaposchkin's achievements were being celebrated, said (see [39]):-

Payne-Gaposchkin's most dramatic scientific contribution was the discovery that hydrogen is millions of times more abundant than any other element in the universe. Every high school student knows that Newton discovered gravity, that Darwin discovered evolution, even that Einstein discovered relativity. But when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most prevalent element in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know. ... after the award of her doctorate, she lectured in the astronomy department, but her lectures were not listed in the course catalogue. She directed graduate research without status; she had no research leave; and her small salary was categorized by the department under 'equipment.' And yet she survived and flourished.

She published The stars of high luminosity in 1930. Ernst Öpik wrote [24]:-

When in 1930 I came on my first visit to Harvard Observatory, Miss Payne was there already for several years upon Shapley's invitation. We became close friends, sharing our common interests in astronomy and music (including composition), and many evenings were spent together, either in concert halls or at her home which she shared with Miss Frances Wright and where I played the piano - Beethoven, Musorgsky, and also my own creations.

In 1931 Payne-Gaposchkin became a US citizen, however tragic events in 1932-33 changed her life. In summer 1932 Adelaide Ames, one of her close friends and a colleague at the Observatory, drowned in a canoeing accident. Then on two days in May 1933 she learnt of the death of two close friends, Bill Waterford who had shared musical interests with her, was killed in a motorcycle accident in South Africa, and her closest friend at Newnham College, Betty Leaf, tragically died. She wrote [1]:-

Adelaide and Betty - all that I was not, beautiful, delicate, beloved were dead and I was alive. My resolution to open my heart to the world had what I suppose was the inevitable result.

She planned a trip to visit the observatories of Northern Europe. Arriving first in England she was warned of the political situation in Germany, but she did not realise its significance. Continuing her trip, she went to Leyden, Copenhagen, Stockholm, all of which were pleasant visits but she wanted to make a more ambitious trip to Pulkova. She took a boat to Finland and a hydroplane flight from Helsinki to Reval. From there she went to the Fraunhofer Observatory in Tartu where, on saying she was going to Russia, she received a strong warning not to go. However, she went by train to Leningrad and then on to Pulkova. She wrote [1]:-

I spent two weeks at Pulkova, and felt I had experienced a lifetime. The atmosphere of tension never lifted. It was not only the drab and squalid living conditions of the man who was the Director of one of the great Observatories. It was not only the scarcity of food ... Everyone was afraid - afraid to talk least they should be overheard.

She returned to Berlin and went on to Göttingen for a meeting of the Astronomische Gesellschaft but here too there was a tense atmosphere. She was approached by a young man, Sergei Gaposchkin, who was trying to become an astronomer but was struggling against Nazi persecution. After returning to the United States, she managed to arrange for Sergei Gaposchkin to obtain a visa. He arrived in the United States in November 1933 and in March 1934 Cecilia Payne and Sergei Gaposchkin were married. They had three children, Edward (born 1935), Katherine (born 1937) and Peter (born 1940). From 1935 Payne-Gaposchkin began to produce joint papers with her husband and the first book which they jointly authors was Variable stars (1938). In fact she appears to have around 350 publications in total.

In 1943 she published The Scholar and the World which gives a fascinating account of the way that Payne-Gaposchkin saw the world and how astronomy fitted into it. From the text it appears to have been written before the outbreak of World War II. We give an extract from the text at THIS LINK.

One of the more important textbooks was Introduction to astronomy (1954). This book has great significance for me [EFR] since I bought it when I was a student in the early 1960s. I still have my copy and reproduce an extract from the Preface and Introduction at THIS LINK.

Eventually Payne-Gaposchkin obtained a position more appropriate to her contributions. She was given the title of Astronomer in 1938 and shortly after, Phillips Astronomer at Harvard College Observatory. She held this position until 1956 when she was appointed Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University, the first woman to become a professor at Harvard. She served as Chair of the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University from 1956 to 1960 becoming the first woman to serve as a department chair. In 1965 she retired and, in the following year, was made Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. She did not stop her work on retirement, however, working at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1967 until her death in 1979.

Payne-Gaposchkin received many honours. She received the Annie Jump Cannon Prize from the American Astronomical Society in 1934, elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1936, elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943, given an Award of Merit by Radcliffe College in 1952, and awarded the Rittenhouse Medal by the Franklin Institute in 1961. Several colleges awarded her an honorary D.Sc. degree: Wilson College (1942); Smith College (1943); Western College (1951); Colby College (1958); and the Women's Medical College of Philadelphia (1961). In 1976 the American Astronomical Society awarded her the Henry Norris Russell Prize:-

... to commemorate a lifetime of pre-eminence in astronomical research.

On accepting this award, Payne-Gaposchkin said:-

The reward of the young scientist is the emotional thrill of being the first person in the history of the world to see something or to understand something. Nothing can compare with that experience... The reward of the old scientist is the sense of having seen a vague sketch grow into a masterly landscape.

Payne-Gaposchkin and her husband travelled a lot in the 1970s. They visited India, Japan, Hawaii, Trinidad and Tobago, Alaska, Egypt and Spain. She died of lung cancer which had been diagnosed in August 1979 after returning from a trip with her husband which had gone from Tahiti to Australia to India and to Turkey before returning early to the United States.

In the year of her death she published a privately printed autobiography entitled The Dyer's Hand. It was republished in Katherine Haramundanis (ed.), Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections (Cambridge University Press, 1984). We give some extracts from very interesting reviews of this work at THIS LINK.