A Few Women of Science...

Sadly, two years ago today, Sally Ride left us at the all-too-young age of 61. I wrote a brief bit about her one week ago.  Her organization for young people, "Sally Ride Science" is here. Lynn Sherr's biography of her came out a little over a month ago. And here's a 1984 PBS Nova clip of Sally as the inspiring, professional, enthusiastic scientist she was:

Meanwhile, this week, Jim Al-Khalili's last seasonal BBC broadcast of "The Life Scientific" (which gets rave reviews) was with distinguished chemist Carol Robinson, about her struggles toward success and recognition as a female in science:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/tls/tls_20140722-0930a.mp3

Boys are often encouraged, or even pushed, towards science careers, while girls frequently have similar innate interests discouraged or even blocked.  A couple of viral ads from a month ago addressed that issue, and warrant repeated viewing... though I can only do so with my semi-cynical post from a month ago on the mixture of corporatism and message:

http://math-frolic.blogspot.com/2014/06/diversion.html

One quick side-note, speaking of daring, independent-minded women, tomorrow marks the birthday anniversary of trailblazing American aviator Amelia Earhart.

What attracts me to these women is not just their abilities, but their courage and determination… especially the courage of their convictions, regardless of societal bounds or expectations, seeking, in a sense, as Thoreau once exhorted, "to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life."

I'll end this by returning full circle to the U.S. Space Program... and John Denver's tribute to the seven astronauts who perished aboard Shuttle Challenger 28 years ago, including the first teacher in space, 37-year-old Christa McAuliffe, a role model for countless young people at the time (an additional female astronaut on the doomed crew was Judy Resnik):



Sally Ride served famously and admirably (alongside Richard Feynman) on the Presidential commission that investigated the Challenger disaster and found decision-making flaws in NASA's organization hierarchy.
I'm not a Ronald Reagan fan, but I'll close out with his famous words to a grieving nation 28½ years ago:

"We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye, and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'"

Dick and Sally

Or, maybe I should've entitled this: "Sally Ride... R.I.P."

(Yet another brief diversion today… maybe this will become a series… NOT)

When I posted the Richard Feynman piece last Sunday, an emailer wrote to say (scold?) that I hadn't mentioned a single female in my short list of admired people. So let me rectify that a little bit, with three who come to mind fairly quickly:

First is Jane Goodall, who I admire greatly, but more as a spokesperson and role model than as a scientist (nothing against her, I just don't hold high regard for anthropology!). In the political arena there is Elizabeth Warren who shows tremendous potential, but way too early to tell yet.
The only "scientist" though who really jumps to my mind is Sally Ride (of course there are plenty of female scientists I'm little-familiar with), who died two years ago this month. I largely lost track of her once she left NASA, though I knew she was involved in education (at different levels), and heard rumors of her gender preferences. When she died and the rumors of her personal life were confirmed, I was disappointed. NO, not because of the lesbianism, but because of her failure to publicly acknowledge it during her lifetime. I respect and fully understand that decision, but still her trepidations dropped her down a smidgen for me. It says something VERY sad about our society that someone with the courage to pursue the science/space career she had, nonetheless lacked the courage to simply be herself in public. Pretty clearly, what she feared was the judgment of others; the barbed, shrewish commentary and invasion of privacy that might ensue from culture police, made even worse in the day of the internet.  Sally escaped unscathed, but what anguish did it bring to her life hiding constantly behind such a cloak of privacy...

I can almost imagine Sally and Dick Feynman off in another world now, sitting around a table somewhere, playing poker (...maybe even strip poker at Richard's request!), talking physics and differential equations... and laughing at what a screwed-up world they left behind.