Why I like being a physicist
As part of the press hoopla surrounding my trip to Korea as part of the UK delegation for the International Conference on Women in Physics, I have to provide a quote for a press release. The quote should be about how I love physics, how excited I am about conference and how we need more female scientists.
The middle one is easy - I'm looking forward to going so I can meet new people, learn about new research and compare notes with fellow female physicists on scientific life. (And to visit my brother, who I haven't seen in ages, but that's not going into the press release.)
The last one is slightly harder. Why do we need more female scientists, especially in the hard sciences, like physics, and engineering?
I'm starting from the basic assumption that gender differences in ability between an average woman and man, are going to be completely swamped by the differences in ability between any two random people of the same sex. That is, women are just as capable as men of doing science - see the example of the medical and biological sciences. (Anyone who wishes to dispute this premise with me can do so - I'll see them outside shortly)
So, if we take a (hypothetical) group of 100 people, with the same inclination and ability to do science, and discover that only 60 of them actually work in science, it looks like we have a problem. What is stopping the remaining 40 from working in science? Is there something we can do to change things so a higher proportion of this 100 work in science? Because, when you're looking at the big questions of life, the universe and everything, the more brain power you can throw at the questions the better. And different people have different perspectives, and sometimes you need to look at a problem from multiple angles before you can solve it. That's why I don't believe we just need more women scientists, we need more scientists from all sorts of minorities.
Mentioning those big questions leads me rather nicely to why I love physics. Physics is fundamental to how we exist and how we run our lives. If it wasn't for physics, there'd be no interweb for me to be pontificating on, for example. And, unlike philosophy, science provides the framework where we can test out our ideas against empirical evidence to see if they work or not.
For me, it's also about the thrill of discovery. Learning something new and thinking of applying it in a way that's never been done before is very exciting. I'm also a show-off. I want my work to be unique and novel and different. Science gives me that, and it never runs short of challenges. Sure, there are days when my job could just as easily be done by a trained monkey, but there are other days when I feel like I've created something new, and added (in a tiny but non-negligible way) to the sum of human knowledge. I like that feeling.
All of which is a bit too long-winded to fit into a quote on a press release. Darnit.
How about:
"I love physics because I can create devices to take over the world, without having to muck around with all that boring politics stuff. Mwahahahaha!"
Um, maybe not. Aaargh... still no closer to a blasted quote!
The middle one is easy - I'm looking forward to going so I can meet new people, learn about new research and compare notes with fellow female physicists on scientific life. (And to visit my brother, who I haven't seen in ages, but that's not going into the press release.)
The last one is slightly harder. Why do we need more female scientists, especially in the hard sciences, like physics, and engineering?
I'm starting from the basic assumption that gender differences in ability between an average woman and man, are going to be completely swamped by the differences in ability between any two random people of the same sex. That is, women are just as capable as men of doing science - see the example of the medical and biological sciences. (Anyone who wishes to dispute this premise with me can do so - I'll see them outside shortly)
So, if we take a (hypothetical) group of 100 people, with the same inclination and ability to do science, and discover that only 60 of them actually work in science, it looks like we have a problem. What is stopping the remaining 40 from working in science? Is there something we can do to change things so a higher proportion of this 100 work in science? Because, when you're looking at the big questions of life, the universe and everything, the more brain power you can throw at the questions the better. And different people have different perspectives, and sometimes you need to look at a problem from multiple angles before you can solve it. That's why I don't believe we just need more women scientists, we need more scientists from all sorts of minorities.
Mentioning those big questions leads me rather nicely to why I love physics. Physics is fundamental to how we exist and how we run our lives. If it wasn't for physics, there'd be no interweb for me to be pontificating on, for example. And, unlike philosophy, science provides the framework where we can test out our ideas against empirical evidence to see if they work or not.
For me, it's also about the thrill of discovery. Learning something new and thinking of applying it in a way that's never been done before is very exciting. I'm also a show-off. I want my work to be unique and novel and different. Science gives me that, and it never runs short of challenges. Sure, there are days when my job could just as easily be done by a trained monkey, but there are other days when I feel like I've created something new, and added (in a tiny but non-negligible way) to the sum of human knowledge. I like that feeling.
All of which is a bit too long-winded to fit into a quote on a press release. Darnit.
How about:
"I love physics because I can create devices to take over the world, without having to muck around with all that boring politics stuff. Mwahahahaha!"
Um, maybe not. Aaargh... still no closer to a blasted quote!