Who is Eunice Newtonfoot, the scientist honored by Google on Monday?

Google chose to dedicate a doodle on Monday, July 17, to American researcher Eunice Newton Foote, 204 years to the day after her birth. In addition to her fight for women’s rights, she has raised the issue of global warming since 1856, outlining the “greenhouse effect” in her work.

An intelligent, committed woman who is a pioneer in environmental research. in doodle On Monday, July 17, Google paid tribute to the work of Eunice Newton Foot, 204 years to the day after the world was born.

Born July 17, 1819 in Connecticut, she was the first to identify the dangers of carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere. Long ignored by her colleagues because of her status as a woman, her work nonetheless served as a basis for understanding the “greenhouse effect”.

Correlation between carbon dioxide level and air temperature

Eunice Newton Foote was a follower of the Troy Female Seminary, a school that encouraged female students to attend science lectures and participate in chemistry laboratories. By placing mercury thermometers in glass cylinders in an experiment, she discovered the relationship between rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and a warming atmosphere.

The researcher wrote: “The aim of my research was to identify the various conditions that affect the thermal action of the rays of light coming from the sun (…) This action increases with the density of the air, and decreases as it becomes thinner.” 1856 in her work Conditions Affecting the Heat of Sunlight. From this observation, I was able to deduce that the carbon dioxide level has a direct effect on temperatures.

Far from the scientific community, his work was presented by a scholar at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1856. An exhibition that allowed specialists from all over the world to experiment on the subject and come to the same conclusions as Eunice Newton Foote.

Eunice Newton Foot is committed to women’s rights

Before moving forward with environmental scientific research, this same researcher was committed to a better recognition of women’s rights. In 1848, I participated in the first conference on this subject in Seneca Falls (USA).

On this occasion, she became the fifth signatory to the Declaration of Feelings, a document calling for women’s equality on a social and legal level. She also made history as the first woman to participate in this topic on American soil.