RIP Joan Feynman: A Woman Scientist Ahead of Her Time

[phinds]

Two months late, but I just found out she died back in July.

First two paragraphs from the Economist obit which just appeared this week (I'd copy the whole thing but I don't want to do that w/ a copyrighted article)

IN THE DUSTY Spanish town of Tordesillas in 1494, Spain and Portugal divided the unclaimed world between them. The moment is famous. Less well known is that around 1963, she at Columbia, he at Caltech, Joan Feynman and her brother Richard divvied up the universe. She took auroras, the Northern and Southern Lights that shimmer through the night sky in the highest latitudes. He, nine years older and fast becoming a world star in physics, took all the rest, which was fine with her.

The arrangement was serious. When, many years later, Richard was asked to look into auroras, he said he would have to ask Joan’s permission. She said no. They were hers, and besides, he had started the fascination. One night when she was small he dragged her out of bed, made her get dressed and took her to the golf course in Far Rockaway, near their house. Auroras did not normally come down to lower latitudes, but here was one. As she stared at a sky that was dancing with red, gold and green lights, he told her that no one knew how they happened, which was true back then. The mystery, with the lights, lodged in her head for good.

And after she had studied them for a while in adulthood, the statement "no one knew how they happened" became no longer true.

The article discusses how difficult it was for her, as a woman, to be taken seriously as a scientist. For example

At Syracuse University, where her thesis was on absorption of infrared radiation in crystals, she was told to write one on cobwebs, more useful for cleaning her house. When she tried, after graduating, to place an ad in the New York Times for a research job, she was told only men could do so, in the men’s section.

Here's the Wikipedia article on her: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Feynman

 

[mcastillo356]

Fascinating researcher.
It is a man's world, but it wouldn't be nothing, nothing, without women

 

[Quarkman1]

I hadn't heard that -- thanks for sharing! I know Richard was very fond of her and encouraged her desire and love of nature.

 

[Evo]

Thank you @phinds for letting us know. May she rest in peace. Another amazing woman. They paved the way for many. Might be how I got a job designing data networks at the (then) largest company in the world. Funny then the circuits were analog, then we jumped to a few locations where we could do dual 9600 Baud digital circuits. WOW! For quite a while I was the only female in the office.