On August 23, 1856, the Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science was held, which brought together great personalities of the scientific community, inventors, inventors and interested persons.
It was carried out in Albany, New York, with the objective of discussing advances in the field of science and exploring new areas of research.
An unprecedented find
In that conference, the scientist Eunice Foote presented a document entitled: Circumstances that affect the heat of the sun's rays.
It was a document that experimentally demonstrated the effects of the sun on certain gases and how they would act with the earth's atmosphere for the first time.
Foote was able to demonstrate his theory through experiments he carried out using an air pump, four thermometers and two glass cylinders, to measure temperatures under various conditions and repeating the process with hydrogen, air and CO2.
In advance of its time, Foote theorized about the gradual warming of the atmosphere and its consequences, what we now know as the greenhouse effect.
However, his research was praised for "having been made by a lady" and was not given the transcendence he needed.
Gender issue
Three years later, physicist John Tyndall published similar results demonstrating the effects of certain gases in the atmosphere.
His research opened the way for more research on atmospheric variations and the effect on climate.
Tyndall's work, with observations similar to those of Foote, was widely recognized, but the work of the scientist did not reach notoriety.
It was not easy to be a woman interested in science in the nineteenth century, in reality it was not easy to be a woman, period. They had limited opportunities to study and the field of science was dominated by the male sex, which only recently has been trying to change.
That contributed to his advanced investigations not reaching the recognition they deserved.
Fortunately, thanks to the efforts and work of various organizations and groups in search of equality and feminine recognition, today women of science open their way so that more and more is not seen as an exclusive field of men, although it has not been simple.
That is why it is important to know this story and give Eunice Foote the recognition she deserved for her great contribution to science.