One woman who was a centenarian, Inge Lehmann, was also a famous seismologist who was the first to describe the inner core of the earth. Her brilliant career was in part the result of going to a progressive high school. The school was directed by Hanna Adler, one of Niels Bohr's aunts. In the school young women and men were treated the same and it was a shock to Lehmann when she encountered the world outside this unusual institution.
Her father, Alfred Lehmann, was the first professor of psychology at the University of Copenhagen, appointed in 1919. Her mother, Sophie Tørsleff, had a sister who was an early feminist and this aunt's daughter became the Danish Minister of Commerce in the mid Twentieth Century. Inge became a student at the University of Copenhagen in 1907. She passed the first part of her exams and in 1910 was admitted to Newnham College, Cambridge for a year's stay. She was encouraged by her family, but she suffered from overwork, causing her to drop her course of study in physics, chemistry and astronomy, and later World War I interfered. She worked in an actuary office until 1925 when she went to work for Niels Erik Nørlund as a assistant to the seismologist. This caused her to switch her interests to what was happening below the earth's surface - a very fortunate change as it turned out.
In 1928 she received her Magister Scientarum (Master of Science) from the University of Copenhagen and in the same year was named chief of the seismological department of the newly established Royal Danish Geodetic Institute.
Without going into the technical details (See Bruce Bolt below), Lehmann described the structure of the earth's core, a fairly major accomplishment for any scientist. She was one of the founders in 1936 of the Danish Geophysical Society. She was well known internationally and was given honorary doctorates from Columbia and the University of Copenhagen. She was elected as an honorary member or foreign member of two Royal Societies.
She was probably one of the most famous seismologists in the world during the Twentieth Century and served on several international committees and won important awards including one from the Seismological Society of America.
On her 100th birthday in 1988 a reception in her honor was held at the Danish Geodetic Institute. Just before she died she told several of her friends visiting her at the hospital that she had been thinking about her life and was content with it. She died with a satisfied mind, the greatest thing that can happen to anybody.
Internet References:
Bolt, Bruce. Inge Lehmann http://www.physics.ucla.edu/...
Inge Lehmann Facts http://www.encyclopedia.com/...
Inge Lehmann: Discoverer of the Earth's Inner Core http://www.amnh.org/...
Inge Lehmann http://en.wikipedia.org/...