Physicist and chemist Esther Conwell, whose work with Weisskopf on the scattering of electrons by impurities in semiconductors was essential to understanding transistors and the development of integrated circuits, was born #OTD in 1922.
Images: AIP, Ryan K. Morris Photography
The Conwell-Weisskopf theory was developed in 1943, over the course of only a few months. It was considered so important that it was classified as part of the war effort, and not published until 1950.
https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.77.388
The AIP oral history with Conwell is a *remarkable* read, not just for the science and insights about being a woman in the field, but also for observations about social hierarchies in academia and industry, and places like Bell Labs that straddled the two. https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/29913
There is loads of stuff in here, and Conwell is admirably charitable in her descriptions of people and their motivations. But when she gets around to Shockley she wastes no time explaining that he "went off the deep end."
“But he did not cover himself with glory in that exchange. It’s a moment that I have treasured.”

This bit where Conwell calmly ~demolishes~ Marcel Schein at her Ph.D. oral exam is superb.
“He did not cover himself with glory in that exchange” is simultaneously the most charitable description of mansplaining and most satisfying roast of the mansplainer that I’ve ever heard.
And if you see a fellow getting rightly demolished here on Twitter –– a guy admonishing a woman to "read the article" when she wrote the article, or a dude explaining a woman's research to her –– feel free to point out that "He did not cover himself with glory in that exchange."
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