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Maria Goeppert was born on June 28, 1906, in Kattowitz, Germany. In 1910, Maria and her family moved to Gottingen. Maria received a good education from a variety of private and public schools. She was fortunate enough to be accepted to the University of Gottingen in 1924 during a time when it was very difficult for women to get into a college. Maria began with the desire to be a mathematician, but she decided to switch to the study of physics.
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In 1930, Maria earned a doctorate in theoretical physics. She also married Joseph Edward Mayer who was a physics professor at John Hopkins University in Baltimore. They were in the middle of a depression, so no university in Baltimore would hire her. Karl F. Herzfeld became involved in her work and convinced her to become a chemical physicist.
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In 1939, Maria moved to the city of Columbia. She taught at Sarah Lawrence College for one year and worked at the S.A.M. Laboratory separating isotopes of uranium. The director of the project assigned her to side issues instead of the main research because she was a woman and was thought to be in the way. In 1946, Maria moved to Chicago and was considered a help rather than a hindrance for the first time. She also became a professor in the Physics Department. She was hired to work at Argonne National Lab where she learned about nuclear physics. During this time she began working with Jensen, and in 1963, Jensen and Maria were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Maria was the second woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics. Maria had a heart condition, however, and in 1972, Maria died from a coma caused by a heart attack that had occurred the previous year.
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"Winning the prize wasn't half as exciting as doing the work itself. "
~Maria GOEppert
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