-cvj

I love the coincidence but not my forgetfulness. In the past few days I’ve clipped two articles which mentioned Henrietta Leavitt who also struggled in ways that are barely imaginable to me. She is another person for whom I’ve considerable regard and respect, forcing me to ask again how they managed to do their work. I think it has something to do with the love of science but maybe I ascribe too damn much to love.

I will look at the links again which I didn’t read too carefully, spending too much time on the pictures. Thanks for the reminder. Again, you have a very nice way about such matters. I hope sometime that all of you will say a few things about your early years and experiences with science (since my home ground is K-12 science).

I’m glad to learn that no one discouraged you or said a contrary word. I sometimes wonder just how many people have been dissuaded from a career path in science because of sometimes well-meaning/too often, ill-meaning and sometimes downright prejudicial comments. They can have a chilling effect. Many of us are more fragile than we think.

Take care.

Suz, yes, two talks at MIT in fact: the colloquium next Thursday (the 8th), and the cosmology seminar the following Tuesday (the 13th). Drop by and say hi if you’re in the audience.

-cvj

By time anyone realized that she should be put forward for a Nobel Prize, and wrote to her about it, she’d already died from cancer.

-cvj

What is there to say about scientists such as Lisa Meitner, Vera Rubin, Rosalind Franklin and their treatment,discriminated against because they were women and/or for religious differences/backgrounds. I just stand in awe, admiring them and their fierce determination as well as intelligence–ever grateful for their deep insights. I also know that I can only dimly imagine the pain they must have experienced but they went on. What integrity and sense of who they were/are.

I agree with Professor Johnson on the Brenda Maddox biography of Ms. Franklin, a book I wish ended differently. Knowing how it ended made it a more difficult read, i.e., her death from ovarian cancer, a result of her work and and an unknown/underestimted hazard. She was a loss. For me this book is must reading. It also has great insights into how different scientists do science, their use of data and evidenciary claims they are willing to make. The absence of any reference to her by Wilkins, Crick and Watson in their Nobel speeches as well as subsequent publications borders on the unforgivable, no matter the contributions.

The three women mentioned here are simply remarkable. I’m glad just to know a little more about them.

True enough. She also missed out on the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, despite playing a pivotal role in the discovery and subsequent explanation of nuclear fission. The fact that she was a woman played no little part in this omission.

Pete

-cvj

The discrimination against Jews pre-WWII was insane. To think that someone would be excluded from anything based off of random chance (Jewish, Woman, etc) makes me wonder how we’ve gotten this far.