Nancy Farley "Nan" Wood (12 July 1903 – 19 March 2003) was a physicist and businesswoman who was a member of the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

. She was the only daughter of Daniel Lee Farley and Minerva Jane Ross, and a lifelong

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and proponent of the

Women's liberation movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...

as a founding member of the Chicago

National Organization for Women The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...

. As a business owner, she designed, developed and manufactured her own line of ionizing radiation detectors. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Wood taught

calculus Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithm ...

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

sailor A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the s ...

s in Chicago. Later, during World War II, she was recruited to the

, where she designed and developed

ionizing radiation Ionizing radiation (or ionising radiation), including nuclear radiation, consists of subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves that have sufficient energy to ionize atoms or molecules by detaching electrons from them. Some particles can travel ...

detector A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing a physical phenomenon. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsystem that detects events or changes in its environment and sends ...

s with

John Alexander Simpson John Alexander Simpson (November 3, 1916 – August 31, 2000) was an American physicist and science educator. He was deeply committed to educating the public and political leaders about science and its implications, most notably as a principal fou ...

in the instrument division at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

Metallurgical Laboratory The Metallurgical Laboratory (or Met Lab) was a scientific laboratory at the University of Chicago that was established in February 1942 to study and use the newly discovered chemical element plutonium. It researched plutonium's chemistry and m ...

Met Lab The Metallurgical Laboratory (or Met Lab) was a scientific laboratory at the University of Chicago that was established in February 1942 to study and use the newly discovered chemical element plutonium. It researched plutonium's chemistry and m ...

. In 1949, Wood founded the N. Wood Counter Laboratory.Cholo, Ana Beatriz. (17 May 2003). Nancy Farley Wood, 99. Early feminist, business owner. Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Illinois.Editor. (30 April 2003). Nancy “Nan” Farley Wood. Chesterton Tribune. Chesterton, Indiana.

Early life

Wood was born Nancy Lee Farley on a

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

in 1903 at La Monte,

Pettis County, Missouri Pettis County is a county located in west central U.S. state of Missouri. As of the 2010 census, the population was 42,201. Its county seat is Sedalia. The county was organized January 24, 1833, and named after former U.S. Representative Spen ...

and died in 2003 at the home of her son, William in

Baroda Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is the second largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district and is situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River, from the state capital ...

Berrien County, Michigan Berrien County is a county on the south line of Michigan, at the southwestern corner of the state. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 154,316. The county seat is St. Joseph. Berrien County is included in the Niles- Benton Harbor, MI Me ...

. Wood was the second child of four and the only daughter of Daniel Lee Farley and Minerva Jane Ross. In addition to her three brothers, she also had two half-brothers and a half-sister. In 1928, she married John Curtis Wood and the couple had 6 children, 5 of whom survived to adulthood. Nancy and John Curtis Wood and their daughter Shirley June (who died at the age of two) are buried at Green Ridge Cemetery in Green Ridge,

Education

Wood began her education in a

one room schoolhouse One-room schools, or schoolhouses, were commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Spain. In most rural and s ...

in Green Ridge, Missouri. The family moved to central Missouri so she could attend college. Wood graduated from the Warrensburg Teacher's College and taught

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

. She attended the

and in 1927 received a

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

degree in

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

World War II and the Manhattan Project

Prior to and during

, Wood taught

s in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Toward the end of World War II she was recruited to the

where she designed and developed

radiation detector In experimental and applied particle physics, nuclear physics, and nuclear engineering, a particle detector, also known as a radiation detector, is a device used to detect, track, and/or identify ionizing particles, such as those produced by nuc ...

s with

in the instrument division at the

N. Wood Counter Laboratory

In 1949, Wood founded the N. Wood Counter Laboratory. The company was located atop the Hyde Park Bank building in Chicago. The company was established to develop, manufacture and supply gas-filled gamma radiation detectors and neutron radiation detectors. The customer base was research laboratories and universities engaged in the development of the peaceful utilization of

atomic energy Atomic energy or energy of atoms is energy carried by atoms. The term originated in 1903 when Ernest Rutherford began to speak of the possibility of atomic energy.Isaac Asimov, ''Atom: Journey Across the Sub-Atomic Cosmos'', New York:1992 Plume, ...

. The N. Wood Counter Laboratory company remained in business for over 50 years to supply a range of BF₃ proportional

neutron detector Neutron detection is the effective detection of neutrons entering a well-positioned detector. There are two key aspects to effective neutron detection: hardware and software. Detection hardware refers to the kind of neutron detector used (the most ...

s, Geiger-Mueller detectors, proportional gamma counters and gas flow counters. In March 1994, Wood sold the company to her daughter, Marjory Wood Crawford. In 1957, during the

International Geophysical Year The International Geophysical Year (IGY; french: Année géophysique internationale) was an international scientific project that lasted from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War when scientific ...

, the N. Wood model G-15-34A neutron detectors (Simpson Counters) were utilized to collect data worldwide.

NASA satellite programs

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

chose the N. Wood Counter Laboratory G-5-3

s to be deployed as the initial detectors to operate in the

polar orbit A polar orbit is one in which a satellite passes above or nearly above both poles of the body being orbited (usually a planet such as the Earth, but possibly another body such as the Moon or Sun) on each revolution. It has an inclination of about ...

ing

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

s. The N. Wood Counter Laboratory D-5-3L gamma detectors orbited in satellites as part of the following

satellite programs: * Pioneer V mission. Fan, C. Y., Meyer, P., & Simpson, J. A. (1960). Preliminary results from the space probe Pioneer V. Journal of Geophysical Research. 65(6): 1862-1863. * Discoverer or Corona satellite missions. *

Explorers program The Explorers program is a NASA exploration program that provides flight opportunities for physics, geophysics, heliophysics, and astrophysics investigations from space. Launched in 1958, Explorer 1 was the first spacecraft of the United Stat ...

. *

Mariner program The Mariner program was conducted by the American space agency NASA to explore other planets. Between 1962 and late 1973, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) designed and built 10 robotic interplanetary probes named Mariner to explore the in ...

. *

Ranger program The Ranger program was a series of unmanned space missions by the United States in the 1960s whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the Moon. The Ranger spacecraft were designed to take images of the lunar sur ...

Patent credits

*Chlorine logging system using neutron capture gamma rays. U.S. Patent No. 3,244,882. *Production of chemistry-dependent gamma ray and thermal neutron logs corrected for porosity. U.S. Patent 3,435,217. *Radioactive well logging system having a multiple conductor cable. U.S. Patent 3,439,165. *Method for chlorine logging wherein both chlorine and calcium are logged using a plurality of select narrow windows. U.S. Patent 3,484,609.Pritchett, William C., Gant Jr., Orland J. & Calkins, Ray L. (16 December 1969). Method for chlorine logging wherein both chlorine and calcium are logged using a plurality of select narrow windows." U.S. Patent 3,484,609. U.S. Patent No. 3,484,609. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Works cited, credits for use of N. Wood Counter Laboratory detectors

*Fowler, W. B. (1950). Altitude Dependence of Neutron Production by Cosmic-Ray Particles. Physical Review. 79(1): 178. *Martin Jr, Don S., Erling N. Jensen, Francis J. Hughes, and R. T. Nichols. (1951). Radiations from Yb-169. Physical Review. 82(5): 579. *Hall, N. F., & Johns, D. H. (1953). The Separation of Technetium from Molybdenum, Cobalt and Silver. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 75(23): 5787–5791. *Snowdon, S. C., & Whitehead, W. D. (1953). The Total Neutron Cross Sections of Gold, Chlorine, and Phosphorus. Physical Review. 90(4): 615. *Ortel, William C.G. (1954). Neutron Production by Cosmic Rays. Physical Review. 93(3): 561. *Macklin, R. L. (1957). Graphite sphere neutron detector. Nuclear Instruments.1(6): 335–339. *Mosburg, Jr., Earl R. (1959). Scintillation Counter Method of Intercomparing Neutron Source Strengths by Means of a Manganous Sulfate Bath. Journal of Research of the

National Bureau of Standards The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

. 62(5): 189. *Lyon, W. S., & Macklin, R. L. (1959). Neutron activation at 195 KeV. Physical Review. 114(6): 1619. *Raffle, J. F. (1959). Determination of absolute neutron flux by gold activation. Journal of Nuclear Energy. Part A. Reactor Science. 10(1): 8-13. *Flournoy, P. A., Tickle, R. S., & Whitehead, W. D. (1960). Photo-neutron Cross Sections of Cobalt and Manganese. Physical Review. 120(4): 1424. *Kiser, Robert W. (1960). Characteristic parameters of gas-tube proportional counters. Applied Scientific Research, Section B. 8(1): 183–200. *Marion, J. B., Levesque, R. J. A., Ludemann, C. A., & Detenbeck, R. W. (1960). A Versatile, High Efficiency 4π Neutron Detector. Nuclear Instruments and Methods. 8(3): 297–303. *DeVoe, James R. (1961). Radioactive Contamination of Materials Used in Scientific Research.

National Academies of Science The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Natio ...

. National Research Council. Publication 895. Washington, D.C. *Borchers, R. R., & Poppe, C. H. (1963). Neutrons from Proton Bombardment of Lithium. Physical Review. 129(6): 2679. *Teranishi, E., Furubayashi, B., Michikawa, T., Kageyama, M., & Yura, O. (1964). A Paraffin-Moderated 4π-Neutron Detector. Japanese Journal of Applied Physics. 3(1): 36. *Beckurts, K. H., & Wirtz, K. (1964). Standardization of Neutron Measurements. In Neutron Physics (pp. 296–312). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. *Heertje, I., Delvenne, L., Nagel, W., & Aten, A. H. W. (1964). A search for fast neutron detectors without a threshold. Physica. 30(12): 2290–2294. *Gibbons, J. H., & Macklin, R. L. (1965). Total Cross Section for Be-9 (α, n). Physical Review. 137(6B): B1508. *Sokolova, Z. Y., & Chernyaev, V. B. (1968). Detector for low neutron fluxes. Atomic Energy. 25(3): 1018–1019. *Pönitz, W. P. (1969). Experimental determination of the efficiency of the grey neutron detector. Nuclear Instruments and Methods. 72(1): 120–122.

Feminism and women’s liberation

*Founding member, Chicago NOW,

*Woman of the Year, Chicago NOW, 1977 *National secretary, NOW,

*International Chairman, Status of Women,

Zonta International Zonta International is an international service organization with the mission of advancing the status of women.Alan Axelrod, ''International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Fraternal Orders'', New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1997, p. 271. H ...

Community service

* Save the Dunes Council,

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

*Member,

Izaak Walton League The Izaak Walton League is an American environmental organization founded in 1922 that promotes natural resource protection and outdoor recreation. The organization was founded in Chicago, Illinois, by a group of sportsmen who wished to protect fi ...

Hyde Park Hyde Park may refer to: Places England * Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London * Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds * Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield * Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester Austra ...

business woman

References

External links

N. Wood Counter Laboratory BF₃ neutron detector
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Nancy Farley 1903 births 2003 deaths People from Pettis County, Missouri University of Central Missouri alumni University of Chicago alumni 20th-century American physicists 20th-century American educators People from Chicago Manhattan Project people American women physicists Physicists from Missouri Scientists from Missouri American women inventors 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American mathematicians Mathematicians from Missouri Mathematicians from Illinois 20th-century American women mathematicians 20th-century American women educators 21st-century American women Women on the Manhattan Project