Hertha marks ayrton biography of michael

British physicist, noted for work on the motion of waves and formation of sand ripples, and the behavior of the electric arc. Name variations: adopted the name Hertha while at Girton College.

Born Phoebe Sarah Marks in Portsmouth, England, in 1854; died in 1923; third of five children of Alice and Levi Marks (a clockmaker and jeweler); attended boarding school, London; Girton College, Cambridge (1876–1880); Finsbury Technical College (1884–1885); married William Edward Ayrton, in 1885; one daughter, Barbara Bodichon (Barbie) Ayrton, 1892.

Hertha Marks Ayrton was a nonconformist from youth, a fact that may well have contributed to her interest in scientific research and invention, fields not widely open to women during the second half of the 19th century.

Faced with a male-dominated scientific community all her life, she maintained an ongoing interest in women's suffrage and believed sexism had no place in the laboratory. "The idea of 'women an