The myth about women in science

Emmy Noether, right, is featured in the March 23, 2015 Google doodle in commemoration of what would be her 133rd birthday. The math wizard came up with an algebraic theorem that connected two fundamental laws of physics. Noether's Theory is seen by some to be as important as Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. In fact, Einstein considered Noether to be the most significant female mathematician.

Harvard professor Lisa Randall, left, researches theoretical particles and cosmology. By connecting the ideas about theoretical particles to the questions about the universe that physicists have yet to answer, she has developed new understanding about dark matter and extra dimensions in space.

Click through the gallery for more women pioneers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and their modern counterparts.

Grace Murray Hopper, an American computer scientist and U.S. Navy Rear Admiral (right), created Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL.) She also coined the term "debugging" in reference to fixing a computer.

Hopper paved the way for other females in computer science, including University of California at Berkeley Professor Katherine Yelick. She is the co-author of two books and more than 100 technical papers on parallel languages, compilers, algorithms, libraries, architecture, and storage. She led the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center from 2008 to 2012 -- a high-performance computing facility that helps scientists run tests. One of the computers in the facility is named after Hopper.

The work of solar astronomer Mitzi Adams, left, has improved our understanding of the sun's turbulent behavior. Since joining NASA in 1988 at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, she has conducted research for a variety of solar missions. She carries on the tradition of discovery that Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941) began in the late 1800s. Cannon was known as the "census taker in the sky," and developed a stellar classification system that became the standard of the Harvard Observatory.

Sara Seager, left, can measure outer space. An astrophysicist and planetary scientist at MIT, her research led, in part, to the first detection of light emitted by an exoplanet, a planet outside our solar system. She now focuses on characterizing all aspects of exoplanets, from theoretical models of their atmospheres to detecting the growth of a constellation. She continues the kind of work astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt did. Leavitt, right, discovered a relationship between the brightness and fluctuation of stars, as seen from Earth, that became the basis of astronomers' ability to measure the distance between Earth and other galaxies.

American physician and former NASA astronaut Mae Carol Jemison, left, became the first black woman to travel in space in 1992. As an astronaut, Jemison served as a liaison between the astronaut corps and launch operations at Kennedy Space Center, according to her biography. She also flew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in the first joint mission with the Japanese Space Agency. Fellow astronaut Sally Ride, right, helped pave the way for Jemison's career: In 1983, she flew to space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, becoming the first American woman (and, at 32, the youngest American) to enter space. She flew on Challenger again in 1984 and later was the only person to serve on both panels that investigated the nation's space shuttle disasters in 1986 and 2003. Ride died in December 2012.

Shafi Goldwasser, left, is one of the world's leading cryptology and complexity theory experts. A professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT as well as a professor of mathematical sciences for the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, her work has allowed secure information to be sent over the Internet. Ada Byron Lovelace, right, helped make Goldwasser's research possible by conceiving the first algorithm that could be processed by a machine. Lovelace is largely seen as the world's first computer programmer.

Nuclear chemist Darleane Hoffman, left, specializes in heavy elements like plutonium. She was part of a team that focused on