Dark Matters...

Image Credit: Discovery Magazine

Yesterday, I posted a link to an article from Nature titled: Intel enters the third dimension, regarding their research into and eventual production of the Tri-Gate transistor. I expounded in layman's terms on the understanding of what this means.

Another link caught my attention that I read: Are scientific reputations boosted artificially? The author, Philip Ball, is a science writer with a bachelors in Chemistry from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Physics from the University of Bristol. He is a science writer based in London, UK.

I thought about some of the things he stated in his article: "A paper, published online in PLoS ONE on 4 May, by physicist Santo Fortunato at the Institute for Scientific Interchange in Turin, Italy, Dirk Helbing of ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, and their coworkers aims to shed some light on the mechanism by which citations are accrued. They have found that some landmark papers of Nobel laureates quite quickly give their authors a sudden boost in citation rate — and that this boost extends to the author's earlier papers too, even if they were in unrelated areas...What the new findings underscore is that science is a social enterprise, with all the consequent quirks and nonlinearities."

Social enterprise

When I attended graduate school in Texas, there was a young lady in the department that despite my sincere (and quite innocent) questions, asking them or getting her attention with a mere tap on the shoulder caused her to jump out of her seat: each and every time! I finally got tired of asking her, and found someone else.

The astronomy department has the tradition of dressing up for Halloween. Though I typically do not, I decided Mace Windu was a dignified costume. One of the other graduate students (female, not the one mentioned above) decided to come as a "home boy": drooping pants, handkerchief flag, underwear visible and backwards hat! I was not amused, but kept my silence.

My youngest son experienced this social interaction at the Catholic private school his academics got him into: "Pop, they treat me like...a criminal, and act like they've never been around black people."

The campus police would stop him on several occasions in trips from the basketball court to the dorm (he plays for the school team); he is one of five African Americans on a campus primarily populated by children that have been to private Catholic schools and/or home schools where diverse student populations are not the norm. He has a 3.0 GPA, and is transferring to the University of Texas Arlington to continue his studies in Architecture in the fall. They are cited for having a top-knotch architecture program and for their successful emphasis on diversity. He plans to tryout as a walk-on for their basketball team.

Quirks and nonlinearities

Female Nobel Prize Winners: this is from the Nobel Archives. I count 15 in science (I am including Medicine, Physiology and Economics); Marie Curie won in two categories: chemistry and physics respectively.

Hispanic Nobel Prize Winners: this link is from Answers.com. I count 5 in science.

Black Nobel Prize Winners: Wikipedia.com provides this link. There are 13 listed, the most recent being President Obama, the third since Martin Luther King from the US to get the Nobel Peace Prize...

There are none in science. Zero. Zip. Nada. Honestly, I'm not bitter, but I am concerned.

Within America, a lot of esteem is given to rap artists, football and basketball players within the African American community. Part of that is the story of the people that make it: despite the astronomical probability of success, there is more of a push to attain that among youth than a college degree in science, technology, engineering and math largely because they "see" someone like themselves doing it. Getting a record deal or to a professional sports franchise is the "brass ring." Seeing someone like themselves making it in STEM: that should be celebrated and promoted just as much, and the odds are far greater for success with an education versus entertainment (this link is in part, straight from the mouths of rappers).

I know that research is being done at majority and historically black colleges and universities by colleagues of color in science and technology fields: but, how is that intellectual contribution esteemed? Are they being awarded research grants equally? Are there collaborations between majority/minority universities on research projects that will get notice in peer reviewed journals; if not (on both counts): WHY not? Many professors at minority institutions were trained at majority universities.

For many, perhaps going into engineering or program management is financially more rewarding than fighting for recognition and tenure at the university level.

All science is social. No discoveries are made in a vacuum: they build upon previous research done by accomplished scientists using the Scientific Method.

Yet, scientists are human and not too long ago held the same prejudices and stereotypes as the less science literate of the general population, and attempted to use science to justify their views, Robert Lee Moore and William Shockley not withstanding: the former I attended classes in a building named in his honor at the University of Texas; the latter I studied his diode equation as an undergraduate at North Carolina A and T.

Another Nobel Prize Winner of note (and, frankly the reason for the modern age), Albert Einstein had profound statements against racism, xenophobia and lynching during a dark time in America. This stance, of course, got him labeled a subversive and probed by the FBI.

The National Accelerator Laboratory have an interesting piece on Einstein's Politics. It is a personal compilation of Walter Isaacson's biography of Einstein, "Ideas and Opinions" and “Einstein on Politics,”(below)  edited by David Rowe and Robert Schulmann: read the link Einstein's Politics from the bottom of page 4 to the top of page 6.

We cannot escape our past. The blessing is that we're not animals that function primarily on instincts. We can determine our future...together.

Quoting the global diversity sign I viewed at IBM: "one of us isn't as strong as ALL of us."