People who made a difference in science

Émilie du Châtelet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_du_Chatelet
"In 1737, Châtelet published a paper entitled Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu, based upon her research into the science of fire, that predicted what is today known as infra-red radiation and the nature of light. Her book Institutions de Physique (“Lessons in Physics”) appeared in 1740; it was presented as a review of new ideas in science and philosophy to be studied by her thirteen-year-old son, but it incorporated and sought to reconcile complex ideas from the leading thinkers of the time. In it she combined the theories of Gottfried Leibniz and the practical observations of Willem 's Gravesande to show that the energy of a moving object is proportional to its mass and the square of its velocity (E ∝ mv²), and not directly proportional, as had previously been believed by Newton, Voltaire and others. The exact formula was later shown to be Ek = (1/2) mv², where Ek is the kinetic energy of an object, m its mass and v its velocity.

In the year of her death, she completed the work regarded as her outstanding achievement: her translation into French, with her own commentary, of Newton’s Principia Mathematica, including her derivation from its principles of mechanics the notion of conservation of energy."

Lise Meitner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Meitner
"Lise Meitner was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, an achievement for which her colleague Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize. Meitner is often mentioned as one of the most glaring examples of scientific achievement that was ostensibly overlooked by the Nobel committee.[2][3][4] A 1997 Physics Today study concluded that Meitner's omission was "a rare instance in which personal negative opinions apparently led to the exclusion of a deserving scientist" from the Nobel."