Transgender science?

Hello,

Is being transgender scientific? I shared my heart and soul in this essay, which is beautifully written if I do say so myself.  :)

http://www.youandmemagazine.com/articles/how-could-i-be-a-woman

Please let me know what you think about it.

xoxoxo,

Michelle

Einstein's activism

Einstein's activism against lynching apparently takes up 20 pages of his FBI "Treason File #61". There's nothing treasonous in it.

Einstein's FBI file is available on the FBI website.

Its implications are discussed in the newly updated _The Einstein File: The FBI's Secret War Against the World's Most Famous Scientist_ by Fred Jerome. I went to the book launch tonight.

Apparently, Einstein didn't just sign a letter. He actively co-chaired an anti-lynching organization, in shock and anger at the wave of lynchings in 1946 after black soldiers returned from World War II. His co-chair was noted singer and activist Paul Robeson, who was also a friend. When a singer was not allowed to stay in a local hotel --solely due to her race--- Einstein let her stay at his house. In her memoir, she recalled him fondly.

Einstein was also active ---beyond writing--- on other issues. Free speech and nuclear weapons are still debated today. But on anti-semitism and race, Einstein's opinions, while radical in their day, are common sense now.

I like knowing this side of Einstein. For me, it humanizes him.

More Evidence?

There are climate change skeptics, but the publisher of Skeptic flipped on the issue. Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, used to believe that climate change was not happening or, at least not human caused. He's changed his mind on this.

Katrina and the superdome. Sandy, with New York City streets under feet of water.

And I'm published in Skeptic, again, with vol22, n2. Reviewing books about fraud and cons. Obviously unrelated. One of the points, in one of the books: the most successful con is the one that is undiscovered.

And I've flipped over Skeptic.

"Whether" prediction works?

Much more snow was forecast. On the news they talked of a foot or more for NYC. We have less than they forecast.

Is this unusual? My very first review for Skeptic magazine, written under my male pseudonym, talked about this. The book was William Sherden's _The Fortune Sellers_ and his persuasive argument was that predicting the future doesn't usually work. That even with better equipment and better training, weather prediction is not going to _ever_ be more accurate than an estimate, and that not for more than a day or two ahead.

Sherden makes the same argument for stock market prediction. People pay big money for stock market prediction, and how often is it right?

Try it: maybe write down for, say, a week, what weather forecasters say, and then write down what happens. How right are they for seven days ahead? For the next day?

Do you own stock? Would it give you confidence to write down what the predictors say, and then, six months or a year later, compare it with what happened?

Tech allows change?

Why do histories of science discovery include biographies of the discoverer? I found it revelatory when it was pointed out that it was new technology related to glass which allowed the discoveries made via the microscope and telescope.  I feel like I missed this because I was too distracted by text discussing who the discoverers were.

I’m not saying that the lives of the scientists are not worth studying. Discovering, via Keynes, that Newton believed in alchemy is relevant to many questions, the fact that one scientist could do his work because he was wealthy, that another was persecuted while others of his time weren’t due to where he lived, is all worthy of study, for many reasons.

What I am saying is that in trying to cram everything into a textbook, we run the risk of readers getting turned off. I was.

I was.

Most of what I’ve learned about history, and other areas, I’ve learned despite the textbooks.

What if curious children and adults were introduced to the story of science in another way? What if science history was framed by the history of the technology available to the investigators, rather than by the investigators lives?

What if telescopes and microscopes got a chapter, perhaps the same chapter? I didn’t understand it when the ability to see inside of cells was credited to a person rather than to a technology. The person deserves some credit, but since the person was the focus I lost sight of the fact that it was the technology that allowed the insight. Likewise the telescope: Galileo’s place is secure because he used the telescope more effectively than his predecessors, but the larger point, the take away, is that the new technology is what allowed him to see new things.

In an era where science funding is cut, this is not an insignificant point.

There was a Time Magazine special edition that discussed the results of scientific discoveries. The laser, for example, led to new audio/video tech, new eye surgery, and supermarket checkout scanners. This was more helpful for my understanding of the world, or of how science and technology can effect society, than if that discussion had been clogged with names. There was nary a one. So I could focus on the ideas, and I said, "WOW! THAT'S NEAT!"

What if a discussion of modern discoveries and theories was framed around how the cpu --starting with the 4004, say--- allowed calculations previously too complex and lengthy for humans to do? It’s true: in more than one field, calculations that would have taken _teams_ of researchers _years_ to accomplish can now be done in hours or minutes. And in field after field, ---iPhones to mass marketing to the age of the universe to cancer--- this has made all of the difference.

If you want to study how science is done, study how the great scientists worked. But if you want to learn how discoveries changed our lives, focus on the technology. Trying to do both at once confused me and discouraged me. Separating them opened the world to me.

Is it just me?

Societal knowledge

Of course human beings continue to learn more about the world: the ancient Greeks couldn't put a human being on the moon, the germ theory of disease wasn't fully accepted by doctors until, what, a  a century and a half ago?

But we also lose knowledge:
*archological sites give us new knowledge of human origins and the timing of human accomplishment. Bombs obliterate this, as was done in the first US Gulf War a quarter century ago, and more recently in Syria.
*the notion that everything is made up of atoms --which led eventually to the atomic bomb and plastics, amongst many other things--- was first proposed hundreds of years BC: but, by luck,  Democritus's writings were lost, and Plato's (among others) were preserved, all by accident. What if it had been the reverse? (From Charles Van Doren's _History of Knowledge_).
*I read, somewhere, in English, that there are languages that are only spoken by a few senior citizens, that once they die, the language may too.
* So-called primitive people sometimes know that an obscure plant will treat a particular symptom. Pharmaceutical companies investigate this, and it can be the origin of some new wonder drugs. If the peoples, or the plant, go extinct, so does that knowledge.
*The Pinkerton Detective Agency protected the President of the United States before the Secret Service did. The Pinkerton detectives were also involved in a vast array of issues, from labor strikes to investigating fake psychics. So is the burning of their records insignificant?
*Which isn't as bad as the case of the massive scale of records destruction in the Chinese cultural revolution. Historians of China are at a loss: the records of earlier times were systematically destroyed.
*Houdini was one of the highest paid entertainers of his era, and remains an icon 90 years after his death. Too bad he was buried with some of his family correspondence in his coffin.

Can you think of other examples of knowledge that was destroyed, permanently, by accident or on purpose?


(Note: Source: the concept of "lost knowledge" was introduced to me by Peter Burke's _Social History of Knowledge_. I don't know if he discusses any of my examples).

Does it count?

Is measurement, numbers, taking over our lives?

The humanist in me is tickled that the design of, say, sailboats, is done using mathematics.

Surely university scholars are safe? 

*statistical analysis of texts to find word patterns to help identify anonymous authors

*a database that ranks scholars by the number of times their article has been cited

My physician likes to describe the nuances of his patients symptoms on his reports, he told me, but he added that his boss wants him using specific diagnosis codes ---numbers--- instead. So much for nuance. Easier for billing, perhaps, easier for epidemiology perhaps, but less human. 

I stopped going to a confidential support group in part because of the new rule that everyone had to sign in. So much for confidentiality. I'm told that this decision was made because the institution gets its funding based on ----the number of people who attend. In some support groups, that will scare people away. 

Is it a "sign" of the "times" that even the romantic places of libraries often now use statistical "tests of collection strength"? 

(One joke: if a math book is a book about math, is a library book a book about libraries? Just asking)

Then there's the danger of computers doing financial trading ---flash trading--- the owning of a stock for seconds, literally less than a minute, to make a profit. 

What happened to the craftsman who designed the boat by how he felt, the librarian who bought the books that felt right, buying stocks because you feel they will go up? 

What are we losing? 

Are we becoming numb-er? (That joke is from the delightfully thoughtful book Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos, but all the other jokes, such as they are, are mine. The context in which I am using his joke is also different: the trends I  describe are not his focus in that book and, in any case,  have advanced since his book. Hopefully that does not "mean" that we are numb-er to them). 

HEDY! Tuesday November 15th

First the premiere sold out, then the encore performance sold out. Now you have one last chance to see the funny and thoughtful "Hedy! The Life and Inventions of Hedy Lamarr" on Tuesday, November 15th, at 9:30pm at Theater Row theaters, 42nd btw 9th & 10th.

The time is important, because at telecharge dot com, the show will be listed by date and time rather than by show name, as it is still part of the United Solo festival.

On seeing it again, I was powerfully struck by how the show amusingly highlights the non-amusing issue of women being judged by their looks and the humor of Ms Lamarr using men's stupidity to her advantage.

For less than $25 it is a bargain, and only an hour long.

And there's intrigue: she was Jewish and imprisoned in Austria at the dawn of WWII. And she bested Louis Mayer in negotiations. And did I mention that it is funny?

Hedy!

When I saw an advance workshop production of "Hedy! The Life and Inventions of Hedy Lamarr" the whole audience laughed so hard, so often, and the show won an award! So now it's being produced for two shows only. The November 9th performance is sold out! This is under United Solo/Theatre Row.

An extra performance, Friday November 11th @7:30pm has been added and there are a few seats left. Telecharge dot com or : 212-239-6200. It may be under date and time rather than by title.

Can you believe that a Hollywood star co-invented technology used in missile guidance and cell phones?

Friends & shells

Tonight I did more than make a friend. An acquaintance called, we discovered that we had more in common than I thought we did. So I feel like he's a friend now.

But enjoying our conversation also helped me get out of my shell. Laughing on the phone inspired a joy of people. I'm naturally an introvert. My preferred activity is studying, after which I like to relax by--- reading. In my spare time there are solo household chores to do.

But while my brain requires quiet time to function well, and reading energizes me, I am in some ways also a recovering introvert. I'm learning that, in the right doses, friends are like needed medicine: too little and I'll be lonely (sick), too high a dose is toxic. But at least some time with friends is good for me. I've known for a while that being with people can be "good for me."

What I got reminded of tonight was that it can even be fun!

Thanks, Andrew.

[edit: it happened again. Thank you, Sara]

--Michelle

A "Hedy!" experience

The inventor of your cellphone was a Hollywood star.
Called the most beautiful woman in the world,
Her name was Hedy Lamarr

From the famous Louis B. Mayer she chutzpah-ed a better contract,
but complained that her looks always did distract
in film she was a star, but in real life,
Being judged only by her looks caused her strife.

She escaped boring husbands and helped out in World War II,
performing and serving and hugging for USO,
and co-patenting a technology used by me and by you.

She meant it to save lives in the guidance of missiles
but the smart woman's invention of radio wave frequency hopping
eventually was used from cell phones to wireless online shopping.


OKAY I'm not a great poet, but I am giddy after seeing a play that I enjoyed more than any I can remember. "Hedy! The Life and Inventions of Hedy Lamarr" had me laughing almost non-stop, and thinking too, so enjoyably. It's fitting that Richard Rhodes, who could make physics a narrative, wrote a history of Hedy Lamarr and her technological contribution to the world.

It didn't come out that she was Jewish until her death, and her technological research was only declassified (?) in like 1985?

My friend Heather Massie wrote and stars in "Hedy!" I was worried that I might not like the play but I LOVED it.

The next performance is in November, so you have plenty of time to plan for it. Seriously, the audience laughed out loud through the whole performance today. And it made me think, and it wasn't even idolatry: she made some bad decisions about who to marry, and then did it again. And in addressing her life, the play addresses glamour culture, technological dependence, bureaucracy, sexism, the horror of war, the importance of self confidence. In the advance preview I saw today, Ms. Lamarr scolded a patron whose phone went off, the audience cracking up in the process. Ms. Massie's Hedy! is charming and smart.

"Hedy! The Life and Inventions of Hedy Lamarr" will be performed on November 9th, in the cool days between Halloween and Thanksgiving, in New York City.

EDIT: THE SHOW IS ON NOVEMBER 9TH. Buy a ticket. :)

Trees & birds

Recently walked down the street in NYC and noticed that a tree was chirping. A lot. I looked up and there were little brown chicks throughout the tree, each was chirping. Like a playground full of young children, a beautiful high pitched collage.

Trees are amazing: most trees & plants leaves will wilt in response to drought. Why? So that the leaf has less surface area for sun absorbtion. How does that relate to water? Because water for the most part gets to the leaves via the roots, replenishing what the sun dries out in the photosynthesis process. And here's a secret: tree leaves are usually brighter on the top than the bottom. I had not noticed this until it was pointed out, and now I see it everywhere...

And, strolling through the park one day, in the very merry month of --June, sorry-- a remarkably colored bird landed in front of me: it had a sleek gray body, white tail, black head, and red crown. And then it flew off before I could ask its name. Does anyone know?

So trees & plants are more ingenious than I realized, not just ---forgive me here--- for the birds.
::lass ducks, runs away::

EDIT: fixed typo.

Silicon econ

Is there a part of life that has not been changed by computer chips?  In the late 1980s and 1990s the most popular desk computers used Windows and, usually, Intel chips. The longtime head of Intel, chemist and businessman Andrew Grove, died a few days ago, and the NYTimes obituary made a statement that seems at odds with the notion that regulation is good:
"To meet voracious market demand...Mr. Grove insisted that Intel employees regularly work many overtime hours." Did this save the employees jobs, and perhaps the company?
The article also quoted a competing manufacturer, AMD, that Mr. Grove's "Intel goes to the edge-and sometimes over it..." in not allowing computer manufacturers to use other companies chips.

Did society benefit from practices that were impolite?

(Edited to hilight title)

Houdini publication!!!

Probable fraud in the roaring 1920s! A woman claimed that her dead brother (did I mention that he was dead?) could not only move physical objects, but overhear distant conversations (which is kinda creepy, if you ask me). Scientists investigated, and there were charges of sexual compromise and other betrayal. My review of The Witch of Lime Street: Seance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World was the feature article in the March 16, 2016 issue of eSkeptic, http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/16-03-16/
 the edited weekly email newsletter published by The Skeptics Society, which also publishes Skeptic magazine. I'm excited!

Frost Flowers

Frost Flowers

"Flowers", flower petals, made of ice. They can be beautiful. And they can be made by plants, apparently on purpose. How extraordinary. And, like a fairytale magical object, they only exist for a few hours at night, then melt, disappearing. It is in this week's NYTimes "Science Times", p.D2.

Frost Flowers

Frost Flowers

"Flowers", flower petals, made of ice. They can be beautiful. And they can be made by plants, apparently on purpose. How extraordinary. And, like a fairytale magical object, they only exist for a few hours at night, then melt, disappearing. It is in this week's NYTimes "Science Times", p.D2.

Freedom & Oxygen (and carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen)

Freedom & Oxygen (and carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen)

Ideas can give complex topics a unity. An example from history is the contradictory interpretations of "freedom".  In nature, an example (the most basic?) is the scientific discovery of the elements of life being present in the stars.

Freedom: In the US, how did slave owners write so poetically of all men being free? Compare the early 20th century phrase "wage slavery" to the late 20th century argument that the economy needs to be "free" of government interference.  The idea that US history can be examined via different meanings of the word "freedom" gave me a way of unifying it, though there are other themes that can be used. (Inspiration: the books The Story of American Freedom and the stimulatingly different  Patriots History of the United States, among others).

"Freedom" could be seen as the "oxygen" of democracy, but that's not where I'm going today.

Compared to "freedom", the discovery that all plants and animals live by carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen is more fundamental,  all the more so with the more recent discovery that  the same four elements are "star stuff".  Biology and astronomy somehow make more sense to me now. (My limited knowledge of this is mostly from the book The Scientists by John Gribbin).

I'm not saying that US history is reducible to the above (and many more) usages of the word "freedom", nor am I suggesting that biology and astronomy are simply made of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. In US history there are varying interpretations and other themes that could be used, in the sciences the details are complex. But these two basic ideas did give me a new perspective, a new way of viewing the topics, a unity, or theme, in complex subjects.

Is there a big human idea that inspired you to see a topic of study differently? Another field with a leanse which is one of many? Or a complex field with a fact that is discovered to be fundamental?