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Ele Willoughby, PhD
Ele Willoughby, PhD
@minouette@spore.social  ·  activity timestamp yesterday

For #printerSolstice2526 prompt division here is my #linocut portrait of Agnes Pockels (1862-1935), the self-taught scientist who pioneered surface science.

As a woman she did not get the chance to go to university & study physics like her theoretical physicist brother Friedrich, who discovered the Pockels effect. So at 18 she took her "passionate interest for natural science" to her household chores &
https://minouette.etsy.com/listing/4451882120

#womenInSTEM #sciart #histsci #printmaking #chemistry #mastoArt

My Lino block portrait of Agnes Pockels holding her pen and notebook by her trough (which was 70 cm by 5 cm and 2 cm deep, with a ruler along its length and a sliding divider). There is a button attached to an apothecary scale in the through so she can measure surface tension. She has her hair up and wears a dress and a cross on a necklace. She is surrounded by soap bubbles and you can see text in reverse for the Pockels point, 20 angstroms squared. She is in a gradient of dark forest green to lime from the base of the print upwards. The text, bubbles, and swirling patterns in the soap film in the front of her through are in pale pinkish purple.
My Lino block portrait of Agnes Pockels holding her pen and notebook by her trough (which was 70 cm by 5 cm and 2 cm deep, with a ruler along its length and a sliding divider). There is a button attached to an apothecary scale in the through so she can measure surface tension. She has her hair up and wears a dress and a cross on a necklace. She is surrounded by soap bubbles and you can see text in reverse for the Pockels point, 20 angstroms squared. She is in a gradient of dark forest green to lime from the base of the print upwards. The text, bubbles, and swirling patterns in the soap film in the front of her through are in pale pinkish purple.
My Lino block portrait of Agnes Pockels holding her pen and notebook by her trough (which was 70 cm by 5 cm and 2 cm deep, with a ruler along its length and a sliding divider). There is a button attached to an apothecary scale in the through so she can measure surface tension. She has her hair up and wears a dress and a cross on a necklace. She is surrounded by soap bubbles and you can see text in reverse for the Pockels point, 20 angstroms squared. She is in a gradient of dark forest green to lime from the base of the print upwards. The text, bubbles, and swirling patterns in the soap film in the front of her through are in pale pinkish purple.
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Ele Willoughby, PhD
Ele Willoughby, PhD
@minouette@spore.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 9 hours ago

applied her analytic mind & careful observation to what she saw even in greasy dishwater. Fascinated with how soap behaves on the surface of the water & in the effect of impurities she began performing experiments & pioneered the entire field of surface science describing physical properties at interfaces, gained international recognition, published a series of peer-reviewed papers & earned an honorary doctoral degree from Braunschweig U. 🧵2/

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Ele Willoughby, PhD
Ele Willoughby, PhD
@minouette@spore.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 9 hours ago

Performing kitchen-table research, she developed a surface film balance technique to study soap & surfactants at the air-liquid interfaces & defined the Pockels point, the minimum area a single molecule can occupy in a monomolecular film (20 Å squared). She used a through with sliding divider, lengthwise ruler & a button lifted by an apothecary scale to measure surface tension. She could then compare the force required to lift her button from pure water, or water with various added 🧵3/

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Ele Willoughby, PhD
Ele Willoughby, PhD
@minouette@spore.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 9 hours ago

substances & impurities. She found that small amounts of impurities could have a large impact on surface tension.

She had tried writing to physicists in vain, but her brother sent her a paper on surface phenomena by renown physicist Lord Rayleigh. She wrote Rayleigh a letter, including all her results. She explained that she had been unable to publish her results in any scientific journal & she gave him her permission to use her results if they were at all useful. 🧵4/5

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Ele Willoughby, PhD
Ele Willoughby, PhD
@minouette@spore.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 9 hours ago

He instantly recognized the importance of Agnes’ work & to his credit he sent them to Nature, putting the weight of his reputation behind supporting the work of an unknown amateur. Nature published Ages’ letter with Rayleigh’s cover letter. This paper, ‘Surface Tension’ is considered a landmark in the history of surface #chemistry

Find more on my blog: https://minouette.blogspot.com/2026/02/agnes-pockels-find-wonder-while-washing.html?m=1

🧵5/5

Agnes Pockels Find Wonder While Washing Dishes and Invents Surface Science

Agnes Pockels , linocut, 11" x 14" on Japanese paper, by Ele Willoughby, 2026 The seventh prompt for #PrinterSolstice2026 is division, and I...
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