Charlotte Angas Scott

          Charlotte Angas Scott was born on June 8, 1858 in Lincoln, England.  She was home schooled when she was a child.  She went to Girton College and won a scholarship because she was very smart.  The college was only for women and it was new. 

Photo Courtesy of Girton College

Photo Courtesy of Cambridge University

          Cambridge University would not let her be a student there because she was a woman.  Many people were upset.  They started a petition.  The petition said that Cambridge University should allow all women to take the tests and recognize them when they got good grades.  After this Cambridge University decided to let women take the tests and go to school there.  She was the first woman to pass the mathematics test at Cambridge University.

          Scott got her doctorate degree in math from the University of London.  Then she became a teacher at Girton College.  Later, Scott became a professor at a college called Bryn Mawr.  She was the only woman with a doctorate degree in math that knew English.  She was also the first math department chair.  She wanted women to be treated the same as men.

Photo Courtesy of Bryn Mawr College

Photo Courtesy of the Magazine of the Mathematical Society of America

           Scott’s hearing got worse and worse each year.  When Scott was 30 years old she was completely deaf.  Scott was very good at teaching.  She trained older students to help younger students.  She also had people that helped her communicate with her students.

           Scott helped start the College Entrance Examination Board and the American Mathematical Society.  She was also the Chief Examiner in Mathematics for two years. 

Photo Courtesy of American Mathematical Society

Cone

Photo Courtesy of coolmath.com

Planes

Photo courtesy of http://www.electrostatics3d.com/geo/

Later Scott became the coeditor of the American Journal of Mathematics.  She was the coeditor for 27 years.  She wrote many papers that were printed in journals.  Some of the subjects she wrote about where planes, linear curves, cones, and polygons. 

          “A Proof of Noether’s Fundamental Theorem” was her most important paper. This was about geometry. 

          After she retired she lived in England.  She liked horses and gardening.  She didn’t stop thinking about math when she retired.  She wanted to know how they used math in horse breeding and horse racing so she studied it.
 

      
Photo Courtesy of National Geographic

She died on November 10, 1931 in England.

Memberships

Edinburgh Mathematical Society

Circolo Matematico Di Palermo

Honorary member of the Amsterdam Mathematical Society      

http://deafscientistcorner.pbworks.com/Charlotte+Angus+Scott

References

Lang, H. G., & Meath-Lang, B. (1995). Charlotte Angas Scott.  In A Biographical Dictionary: Deaf Persons in the Arts and
     Sciences (pp.313-317). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Morrow, C. & Perl, T. (1998). Notable Women in Mathematics: A Biographical Dictionary. Westport CT: Greenwood Press.

Obituary. (1931, November 16). The Times.