October 10 is Ada Lovelace Day, an annual celebration of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) The event began in 2009 as a challenge to bloggers to post on the same day about women in STEM, and is now internationally observed. Among this year's events are a variety of lectures, a Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon focusing on entries about female scientists, and the annual Ada Lovelace Day Live "science cabaret" show in London. We observe the day by highlighting books and films about women in STEM.

Of course, we begin with Ada Lovelace herself. In the 1840s, she worked closely with Charles Babbage as he attempted to develop the "Analytical Engine," a machine (which was never actually built) that would perform mathematical computations based on the instructions given to it on punchcards. Lovelace published the first sets of instructions – primitive computer programs – for the machine, and Babbage praised her skill for writing such programs as far above his own. James Essinger tells the story of Lovelace's work, and its influence a century later on those who built the first computers, in Ada's Algorithm (e-book, print).

Lovelace was publicly praised, and the importance of her work acknowledged, by Babbage. Not all female scientists have had such generosity from their male colleagues. Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn led the group of scientists who discovered nuclear fission in the late 1930s, but the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded only to Hahn; their story is told in the documentary The Path to Nuclear Fission: The Story of Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn. Similarly, the contributions of Rosalind Franklin in identifying the double-helix shape of the DNA molecule were largely overlooked until after her death; Brenda Maddox's biography Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA (e-book, print) gives her the credit she deserves.

Sometimes, important scientific contributions are overshadowed by a woman's accomplishment in other fields. We remember Hedy Lamarr primarily as an actress, but she also developed (in collaboration with composer George Antheil) a method of transmitting radio signals to torpedos; that technology is at the heart of many current communications systems, including Bluetooth wireless technology. In Hedy's Folly, (e-book, e-audio, print) Richard Rhodes explores how their invention was created. Mathilde Krim had a distinguished career as a medical researcher, including the development of the first method for determining the sex of an unborn child. She is better known, though, as the co-founder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, in which role she has been a tireless advocate for AIDS awareness and research. That work is the focus of the documentary The Battle of amFAR.

Today, women are still very much in the minority in the STEM fields. Eileen Pollack looks at the reasons for that imbalance, and at what might be done to change it, in The Only Woman in the Room (e-book, print).

Also This Week

• October 9, 1907: Jacques Tati is born. Between 1949 and 1974, Tati wrote, directed, and starred in six feature films. Most of them feature the character Monsieur Hulot, a well-meaning but somewhat bumbling man struggling to cope with the French urge to modernize. Tati's films usually have relatively little dialogue, and are built largely around physical comedy. All six of Tati's films are available for streaming at Kanopy.
• October 9, 1919: The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series, defeating the Chicago White Sox five games to three. The series was plagued by rumors of cheating, and a year later, eight of the White Sox players would be indicted on fraud charges for having thrown the Series. All were acquitted, but the newly-appointed Commissioner of Baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned all eight players from baseball for life. Eliot Asinof's Eight Men Out (e-book, print) is a thorough history of the scandal.
• October 9, 1942: Michael Palmer is born. Palmer was a physician and novelist who wrote medical thrillers. His characters were often doctors who found themselves in peril after discovering unethical practices at their hospitals. Palmer's best-selling novel was Extreme Measures (e-book, print), centered on unauthorized experimental surgeries.
• October 13, 1947: Sammy Hagar is born. Hagar is a rock singer and guitarist who has had a long solo career; his biggest hit was "I Can't Drive 55" in 1984. He also spent a decade as the lead singer with Van Halen, and currently leads the band Chickenfoot. A variety of his music is available for streaming at Hoopla – solo, with Van Halen (this link also includes the band's non-Hagar albums), and with Chickenfoot.