“Study as if you were going to live forever, live as if you were going to die tomorrow.”–wise words from Maria Mitchell, the pioneering astronomer who received a gold medal prize from the king of Denmark for her discovery of a comet, known as “Miss Mitchell’s comet,” in 1847, the first of many awards and honors, including a Google doodle on 8/1/13. I recently visited Mitchell’s home on Nantucket, MA, her birthplace and home until she was became a professor of astronomy at Vassar College in 1865. (Upon discovering that younger, less experienced & less prestigious male professors were paid more than she was, Mitchell demanded more pay and got it!)
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