titles, such as those of research assistant, aerodynamicist, technical assistant, and patent research assistant. For example, one woman who had her bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics, and was working toward her master's degree in physics, was employed as a junior professional engineer. She was engaged in research in a corporation manufacturing radio parts and was making investigations on impulse communications. Two others with a degree in physics were employed as technical librarians.

Besides the 38 women identified as physicists there were about 475 women, most of whom held degrees in chemistry, physics, and mathematics, employed as staff members in 13 of the 17 laboratories, together with 375 women science majors working as engineering assistants, and more than 100 women with high-school training in physics, mathematics, and chemistry, hired as laboratory assistants and scientific testers.

Future opportunities for women trained in science differ from laboratory to laboratory. A few employers indicated that as women with a minimum of training left, they would be replaced by men. One industrial concern which had doubled its laboratory staff during the war planned to return to its prewar size and to release many technical and laboratory assistants. Another reported a need for more engineering and technical aids, and women with some training in physics were wanted as technical librarians, editorial assistants, and secretaries by another. In general, industrial employers are no longer actively seeking women physicists, but women trained in physics can still secure good positions in industry. The situation can be expressed in the comment of one industrial research laboratory director who stated, “We are not recruiting, but we can use a woman with a B. S. in physics."

In 1947, the Civil Service Commission reported that women physicists were in demand in almost all science laboratories maintained by the Federal Government. The need has continued, especially in radar, electronics, and nuclear physics.

Although some wartime research activities were completed, others have been begun. Most of the peacetime research agencies, like the National Bureau of Standards and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, were returning to problems of fundamental scientific research abandoned during the war.

At least 61 women physicists were employed in the Federal Government in 1946, according to reports obtained by the Women's Bureau from the principal agencies employing physicists. Forty-six of them were employed by the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D. C. Other Federal employers included the Bureau of Ordnance and the Office of Research and Inventions of the Navy Department, the

Ordnance Department of the War Department, the United States Patent Office, the Atomic Energy Commission at Oak Ridge, and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

Some of the women employed as physicists during the war were barely qualified; it is possible that a few may not be able to qualify for permanent appointments. In the future, qualifications for physicists in the Federal Government may be raised, but, in 1947, 24 semester hours in physics was required for probational appointments at the beginning professional level. Women with these requirements and a bachelor's degree in physics were eligible for appointment. p. 6-28 for requirements for application.)

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Finally, there is the area of pure research in which the especially gifted woman physicist may make important contributions in the future. During the war little progress was made in answering some of the fundamental problems of the science of physics. The applied research that was done added little to the understanding of natural phenomena, although the technological applications of nuclear physics have already produced the atomic bomb (30). Opportunities for pure research will be available mainly in university and Government research laboratories, research foundations, and in a few of the large industrial research laboratories which engage in pure research as well as in applied and developmental work.

The application of the principles of physics to other physical sciences, as in physical chemistry, geophysics, and astrophysics, for the solution of basic problems is rapidly gaining headway. In biology and medicine too, physical equipment and techniques applicable to biological and biochemical problems are receiving greater emphasis in the expansion of biophysics research programs (7). The interest of women in biophysics and the relative lack of prejudice against them in this field combine to make it a promising field for women physicists interested in research. Recent discoveries in these fields and the advances that physicists have made in an understanding of the nature of the atomic nucleus suggest that the men and women physicists of the future are within reach of a satisfactory understanding of the fundamental laws governing the nature of matter and energy (23). Despite the need for training thousands of physicists in the next decade, only women with superior mathematical and scientific abilities should be encouraged to enter this field. Some of the qualifications which women physicists deem especially important in potential physicists are a scientific curiosity and an independence of spirit, combined with a willingness to try new things and the ability to persist in the solution of a problem, even in the face of possible failure.

Girls who wish to become physicists should begin to prepare themselves in high school, particularly in basic mathematics, and should

start the study of French and German as soon as possible. Their undergraduate courses in college should give them extensive experience with laboratory procedures and develop their ability to use mathematics, both in expressing theory and in solving problems. The training of the professional physicist should be planned to develop scientists rather than technicians. It should be broad and fundamental and directed toward preparation in a field of work, rather than toward a specific job, for the opportunities which arise in the new developments of the science require the ability to turn the older theories and applications to new uses.

The selection of a specialized field of physics for advanced study and graduate work should be determined by the general vocational objectives of the student. The woman who is interested in developmental research in industry will find that, in addition to a fundamental knowledge of the principles of physics, courses in physical chemistry, metallurgy, and electrical engineering will be helpful and should be supplemented by a thorough grounding in the use of scientific instruments (16). However, the woman who is interested in teaching and pure research might select more courses devoted to the theory of physics. No matter which fields are selected, women physicists whose educational background and training have been carefully planned will find opportunity for a growing part in the Nation's life (11).

Occupational Summary of the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel (43)

Astronomers are primarily concerned with the study of the heavenly bodies, their sizes, masses, shapes, positions, distances, motions, and orbits. Astronomers observe the celestial bodies with telescopes equipped with cameras, photometers, micrometers, and various other optical devices. With the aid of mathematics they determine the positions of the stars and planets, calculate orbits of comets, asteroids, etc., and make statistical studies of stars and galaxies. They prepare mathematical tables giving the positions of the sun, moon, planets, and stars at a given time; including the almanacs used by the air or marine navigator to locate his position on land or sea.

At the present time, astrophysics plays a prominent part in the programs of most astronomical institutions. It deals with the study of the temperatures, luminosities, chemical composition, and internal structure of the stars and other celestial objects. For this work, telescopes are equipped with spectroscopes, photometers, bolometers, and in general with instruments that record the radiation received from the objects under investigation. The interpretation of these data requires training in physics as well as in mathematics.

Figure 3.-An astronomer at the U. S. Naval Observatory adjusting the Photographic Zenith Telescope, which is used in determining time by the stars.

THE OUTLOOK FOR WOMEN IN ASTRONOMY

The number of astronomers has always been small, but their contribution to the knowledge of science and the universe has been great. The outstanding work of a few American women who pioneered in this field has eased the entrance of the women who followed. In 1945, 102 of the 600 members of the American Astronomical Society were women. This proportion, 17 percent, approximates that of women in the field itself and is high compared to the proportion that women comprise in the other physical sciences. In the field of mathematics, for example, women in 1944 were 13 percent of the total, in physics, only 4 percent, whereas they were 17 percent of all astronomers.

Prewar Distribution

Before the war most astronomers worked in universities or in research foundations which maintained astronomical observatories. For instance, in 1940, half of the 68 astronomers who had received their Ph. D.'s in the preceding decade were engaged in teaching or combined teaching with research. Two-fifths were engaged in research alone (21).

If an astronomical observatory is defined as a building designed or adapted to house a telescope permanently mounted, there were 273 observatories in the United States in 1945, located in 42 States and the District of Columbia (32). But most of the astronomers were employed in a few large observatories that are either connected with a university or identified exclusively with research programs, like the Harvard, Lick, Yerkes, McDonald Observatories, and the Mount Wilson Observatory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Some astronomers were employed by the Federal Government in the United States Naval Observatory and in the Astrophysical Observatory of the Smithsonian Institution. These observatories and the universities which before the war offered graduate training in astronomy were the principal employers of astronomers. A few were also employed as curators of astronomy and lecturers in the five planetaria in the United States located at Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh.

For women who had secured an advanced degree in astronomy or astrophysics, teaching at the college level provided one outlet. Such openings were few in number, however, and were largely concentrated in those women's colleges in the East which had departments of astronomy. Some women highly trained in astronomy were also en