Hey Science, How YOU doin'?

(Originally written for Double X Science on June 22, 2012. Included here with additional thoughts.)

There have been and will be much more eloquent (and rage filled) responses to this video, but for now I just want to add my voice to the dumbfounded chorus of scientists who woke up to this insanity this morning: 



It's like the only way to correct the stereotype of science being done by old guys in white lab coats with bad hair is to yank the pendulum so far in the other direction and imply that science can also be done by preteens dressed like streetwalkers. Nay, not only can, but is!

Now while I have an admittedly large obsession with fashion, and shoes in particular, it's not representative of how most women dress for work. So why the hell should is it being touted as the new uniform for science?

The real shame is that this flashy (and hideous) video is now the public face for what seems to be a worthwhile, and even well-produced in places, campaign by the European Union to encourage more girls to go into science. There are currently twelve profiles of real women scientists at various stages in their career that are worth watching with any clever young girls you know. Just hit the stop button before the catch phrase/website address gets written in lipstick across the screen at the end of each one.

For me the most important take away is that there exists a spectrum of not only women, but people, in science. There is no mold. It's not a "guy thing," but it's not a "girl thing" either. Anyone with the passion, motivation, and dedication can become a scientist. I called my (neglected as of late) blog "Newtonianism for the Ladies" not because science needs to be dumbed down or spoon fed to women, but after a book by the same title written in 1737 by Francesco Algarotti. Algarotti wrote the book to help spread Newton's ideas on the nature of light and optics to women of the upper class who were only beginning to be educated. The book was also one of the main channels through which Newtonianism reached the general public in continental Europe.

And yet in the intervening centuries, we've gone from "science for all" to "science: it's a girl thing." And instead of science trying to attract girls, we've got girls trying to attract science like it's some kind of horny john. The defense that this video is just a teaser for the "real" campaign on the subsequent pages of the website (some of which aren't even up yet) is laughable. Based on the logo alone, it's clear that they are digging in their 4" heels on this approach. Which is just so damn frustrating when good intentions and good materials are likely to get lost in the backlash.

Just so we're clear, I have nothing against 4" heels. In fact, I own several pairs myself. One of my favorite moments as a teacher was when I taught a summer course on astronomy for 14 and 15 year olds in Cambridge, England. A total of nine students enrolled in my class, eight of them girls(!). I often wore heels to class because I enjoy fashion (see above) and I liked having the opportunity to challenge the scientist stereotype these students grew up with. One day I even brought in a girlfriend, and fellow astrophysicist, to guest lecture and we purposely both wore our new Pucci shoes from the British summer sales (it was a very good sale). On the last day of class, I handed out cardboard telescope kits and once assembled, my students turned their new tools into "yearbooks" by having everyone sign everyone else's.

This is what one of the female student's wrote on mine:

Transcription: "Summer, you are the coolest astrophysicist I know and the one with the best footwear by far, you'll so be my geru [sic] on my quest to be a rocket scientist with great shoes. I had such a blast in astronomy. DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING, it was perfect! Love, Caroline"

I love the spot I occupy on the scientist spectrum, and I know plenty of scientists who love their spots on the spectrum too. What I don't love is when people take one slice of a spectrum as representative of the whole. I would never assume my fellow scientists walked, talked, and dressed the same as me; that is an affront to an observer like me. In astronomy, you learn that if you look at an object in only one wavelength, you're ignoring any radiation it's emitting at other wavelengths and consequently, you're not seeing the whole picture. Without multi-wavelength astronomy (combining observations at more than one wavelength), we would only know a fraction of what we know about the Universe today. I think that's the message we should be sending to girls about science: each scientist is just a fraction of what you can be if you want to pursue science. That message is already out there in some form or another with the "I am Science" and "This is What a Scientist Looks Like" movements, but it would be really great to see it given a bigger platform with lots of resources to reach girls far and wide.

I'm looking at you, EU.

...Not because they are easy, but because they are hard

All the fuss over Newt Gingrich's plans for the Moon glosses over the fact that ambitious endeavors don't just happen because a politician wishes them so, they require the heroic efforts of thousands to tens of thousands of technicians, scientists, and engineers.

Twenty-six years ago today, seven of those heroes lost their lives in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Almost six months to the day before that tragedy, Roger Boisjoly, an engineer and employee of Morton Thiokol, the company that manufactured the Shuttle's solid rocket boosters, made a heroic effort to prevent it. This morning, Letters of Note tweeted the interoffice memo he sent to the company's Vice President warning of the now infamous O-ring failure:

"This letter is written to insure that management is fully aware of the seriousness of the current O-ring erosion problem in the SRM joints from an engineering standpoint.

The mistakenly accepted position on the joint problem was to fly without fear of failure and to run a series of design evaluations which would ultimately lead to a solution or at least a significant reduction of the erosion problem. This position is now drastically changed as a result of the SRM 16A nozzle joint erosion which eroded a secondary O-ring with the primary O-ring never sealing.

If the same scenario should occur in a field joint (and it could), then it is a jump ball as to the success or failure of the joint because the secondary O-ring cannot respond to the clevis opening rate and may not be capable of pressurization. The result would be a catastrophe of the highest order - loss of human life."

Despite these and other warnings, executives at Morton Thiokol did not stop the Challenger launch and the predicted catastrophe did occur. Even so, I think we should all be inspired by Mr. Boisjoly's efforts to make his voice heard and to ensure the safety of those he was helping to leave our home planet.

Sadly, Mr. Boisjoly passed earlier this month, but just under two years ago he gave his personal archive of papers, memos, and notes from his work at Morton Thiokol and his Congressional testimony on the Challenger disaster to Chapman University in Orange, CA. Road trip, anyone?

Stephen Hawking Turns 70

Stephen Hawking was given a few years to live when he was 21. He turns 70 today.

Until just a few years ago, Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at the University of Cambridge. A most prestigious position previously held by Isaac Newton, Charles Babbage, and Paul Dirac.

I crossed paths with Hawking several times during my studies in England. The University of Cambridge is a funny place for those of us that study the Universe. It has three separate departments: astrophysics and cosmology at DAMTP, the Institute of Astronomy, and the astrophysics group in the Department of Physics's Cavendish Laboratory (where I was). Despite the divisions between these groups, bureaucratic and geographic, there is interaction. Specifically as a graduate student, I frequently attended seminars and colloquia in all three departments.

In my first year, my fellow students and I used to attend "Cosmology Lunch" at DAMPT, a brown bag lunch series to discuss current research being done in the field. To my utter surprise, at more than one lunch, the side door opened and Stephen Hawking was wheeled in by one of his graduate students. In fact, the first time this happened, I was sitting next to said door with a friend of mine who had put his wallet down on the table next to him. When Hawking's grad student had situated him properly, he pulled the table over to use for Hawking's lunch and my friend immediately whispered to me that Stephen Hawking just stole his wallet. As you can imagine, this became one of my favorite anecdotes from my time in Cambridge.

In contrast to this amusing episode is the seminar I attended at DAMPT where Hawking first announced that he was conceding his bet with Kip Thorne and John Preskill on the black hole information paradox. Hawking and Thorne argued that once an object was accreted onto a black hole, general relatively prevented any information about the object from being regained, i.e., you couldn't "back out" what went into a black hole by studying the radiation given off by the black hole. Preskill argued the opposite, i.e., that quantum mechanics guaranteed that you could. The loser of the bet had to buy the winner the encyclopedia of his choice, from which information could be obtained at will.

Hawking officially conceded the bet publicly at 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation, on 21 July 2004 in Dublin. However, prior to that, he announced his intention to concede the bet to the Cambridge community at a Friday General Relativity Seminar at DAMTP. The small room was packed and I will never forget the first time I got to see Hawking "speak." He did not work from a prepared text, rather composed his words on the spot to go with the slides he was presenting. As you can imagine, each thought took quite a while to compose. The seminar room was hushed between slides, anxiously waiting for his next sentence. What I remember most was his response to a two-part question towards the very end of the seminar. The audience member sat down after posing his questions and we all sat watching Hawking as he thought them over. After at least five minutes his answer finally came: "yes, and no."

For more on Hawking's current thoughts on the Universe, you can read or listen to him answering questions from the public here.

And to celebrate, I recommend you watch two of the best videos on Hawking and his research. The first is the wonderfully made, "A Brief History of Time," an 80 min. documentary on Hawking from 1991. I can still recall watching it for the first time in middle school. It was an important mile marker on my road to studying the Universe. The second is an epic rap battle between Einstein and Hawking. You heard me: epic rap battle. Happy Birthday, MC Hawking.



(Image credit: http://www.inquisitr.com/wp-content/2012/01/stephen-hawking.jpg)