How one woman solved the 200-year old mystery of Benzene

Director | Editor

Dame Kathleen Lonsdale was a pioneering X-ray crystallographer who throughout her career managed to create new methods advancing the field, produced the International Factor Tables which are still used today and solved the 200-year old puzzle of the structure of Benzene. In this film, chemists Judith Howard (CBE, FRS) and Judy Wu break down her genius and the way in which Lonsdale had to work in the 1920s. They explain her brilliant mathematical solutions and provide context for the history of Benzene and its mysterious chemical nature. Kathleen began her career in X-ray crystallography at the Royal Institution, under her former examiner, William Henry Bragg who was appointed Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory at the Ri in 1923. She later went on to become the first woman admitted to the Royal Society in 1945, the first female professor at UCL and the first woman president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.