Why do men dominate the technical fields so much?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Odin


There are a few really good female physicists out there though.

Lisa Randall

I found her recent book on theoratical physics, Warped Passages, fascinating.

Lisa Randall's coauthor on her most famous papers works 2 doors down the hall, is my good friend's advisor and currently works with my advisor. Additionally, somebody at poly dated Lisa's sister. I'm not going to tell you who.



Secondly, do I really have to go into what I think of popularised physics books again?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Arrian
Thank goodness I found a logic-based female to marry.

-Arrian

The "MBTI" is full of ****.

[Arrian]

Sounds like it, yeah.

-Arrian

[Odin]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Lisa Randall's coauthor on her most famous papers works 2 doors down the hall, is my good friend's advisor and currently works with my advisor. Additionally, somebody at poly dated Lisa's sister.

[KrazyHorse]

Reading the Wikipedia article on Randall I stumbled across this gem:

Randall was featured in Newsweek magazine's "Who's Next" issue of January 2, 2006, as "one of the most promising theoretical physicists of her generation."

She's 44 years old. Nobody's a "promising theoretical physicist" at that age. They've accomplished most of what they're going to accomplish, so they're either an accomplished theoretical physicist or a failed theoretical physicist.

[Arrian]

Why is 44 old in physics? I get why it's old in sports, but why physics?

-Arrian

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Odin

It's not really that impressive. There aren't very many active theoretical physicists in the world.

[KrazyHorse]

I'm two links removed (I work with somebody who works with somebody) from about a dozen Nobel Prizes that I can think of.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Arrian
Why is 44 old in physics? I get why it's old in sports, but why physics?

-Arrian

Because old people are stupid. Seriously. It's a trade-off between knowledge and creativity+intelligence+quickness. People produce what they're going to produce in their late twenties up to their mid 30s in theoretical physics. Experimentalists are less inspiration and more perspiration, so the most active experimentalists are in their 40s and 50s.

To be generous, the active lifetime of a theoretical physicist is 25-40.

[KrazyHorse]

I just came up with a general rule:

When you put out a popularised physics book you have admitted that your active career is at an end. I can't think of any exceptions.

[Arrian]

Hmm. Get cracking, then.

-Arrian

[KrazyHorse]

I am, dude.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Simple "women aren't encouraged to go into technical fields" can explain the lower numbers, but cannot explain my observation of the relative abilities of the males and females which I've seen. In fact, if it was simple selection bias against women who have the ability to enter physics then you would expect the average female physicist to be significantly smarter than the average male physicist.

Not necessarily. You assume that the chance of going into physics remains correlated with aptitude at the high end of the spectrum.

[KrazyHorse]

I specifically mentioned that assumption earlier.

When I need your help disaggregating statistics I'll quit my job.

[KrazyHorse]

The wikipedia on Howard Georgi contains a couple more of my links to Randall (not including the fact that Georgi's text "Lie Algebras in Particle Physics" is sitting on my desk)...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Georgi