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A great mind of science was born on July 23, 1928 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This mind was Vera C. Rubin. At a young age, Rubin exhibited great fascination for the stars and outer space. In order to pursue her dreams of being an astronomer, Rubin attempted to enroll at Princeton, but at the time women could not graduate in the astronomy program. With great perseverance, in 1948 she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vassar College in astronomy. Afterwards she accompanied her husband, a physicist, to Cornell University. There, she earned a Master’s Degree in 1951 and in 1954 she earned her doctorate at Georgetown University. Because Vera did not know how to drive, her parents had to stay in the car with her two children while she took her night classes at Georgetown. Her determination and relentless work ethic got her to where she wanted to be and made her voice heard throughout the scientific world.
The discoveries of Vera Rubin were those that most researchers didn’t think about looking deeper into. She contributed to studies of the universe that has disproved previously theories and has left scientists struggling with the most mysterious questions yet. Vera Rubin presented her Master’s thesis to the American Astronomical Society. This thesis suggested that galaxies might be revolving around an unknown center and not just expanding outward. This thesis disagrees with the widely accepted “Big Bang Theory” which states that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past, and continues to expand to this day. With no scientific theory to explain this finding and being a 22 year old women studying science, this finding gave her a rather negative reputation.
Women at the time were still not fully accepted into studying all the men studied. Discrimination among woman in the laboratory was at full swing, but that didn’t stop Vera Rubin from chasing her dreams and making an impact in the...