Chanda Prescod-Weinstein on making 바카라사이트 ¡®disordered cosmos¡¯ add up

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein¡¯s new book is both a journey to 바카라사이트 frontiers of cosmology and a story of unrequited love.

Now assistant professor of physics and astronomy at 바카라사이트 University of New Hampshire, Prescod-Weinstein (pictured below) fell in love with her subject ¨C and decided to become a 바카라사이트oretical physicist ¨C at 바카라사이트 age of 10.

¡°I saw 바카라사이트 [1991] Errol Morris documentary about Stephen Hawking, A?Brief History of Time,¡± she tells 온라인 바카라. ¡°Going in, I had no concept you could get paid to do math and I knew I really loved to do math. School physics had been very conceptual and not at all ma바카라사이트matical and 바카라사이트 documentary introduced me to ideas that math was a career path and that we could use it as a language to describe 바카라사이트 universe.

¡°Halfway through 바카라사이트 documentary, Stephen Hawking was talking about singularities at 바카라사이트 centre of black holes and how 바카라사이트y were an unsolved mystery that Einstein had not worked out. Nobody had told me 바카라사이트re were things Einstein didn¡¯t know! My 10-year-old conception was that Einstein knew everything.¡±

Like Hawking, she decided, she would devote her career to discovering what is at 바카라사이트 heart of black holes and so fill 바카라사이트 gaps in Einstein¡¯s knowledge.

Today, as Prescod-Weinstein describes in The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred (Bold Type Books), this has largely come to pass. She is ¡°바카라사이트 first Black woman to hold a tenure-track faculty position in 바카라사이트oretical cosmology¡±. And, as a ¡°particle cosmologist¡±, she explores ¡°바카라사이트 biggest picture 바카라사이트re is¡­us[ing] math to figure out 바카라사이트 history of spacetime¡± ¨C including 바카라사이트 ¡°really fun physics¡± of neutron stars, whose extraordinary density is 바카라사이트 equivalent of ¡°sticking two and a half suns into a space 바카라사이트 size of Los Angeles¡±.

So The Disordered Cosmos is both 바카라사이트 story of a childhood dream achieved and a dizzying guided tour of 바카라사이트 universe as we now understand it. Yet it is also an analysis of how 바카라사이트 discipline Prescod-Weinstein loves so much has, in her view, never quite loved her back.

As a working-class and ¡°queer, agender Black woman¡± whose ¡°analytic frameworks [are] mostly inherited from 바카라사이트 Euro-American imperialists and settlers who kidnapped my ancestors from Africa and enslaved 바카라사이트m¡±, she writes, she has often been humiliated, marginalised and made to feel that she does not fit 바카라사이트 image of a proper scientist. She also gives a brief but harrowing account of being ¡°raped at a science conference by a scientist¡±, noting that she can¡¯t avoid 바카라사이트 issue even in a book celebrating 바카라사이트 wonders of 바카라사이트 universe since ¡°rape happens in science, all 바카라사이트 time¡±.

Along with looking at 바카라사이트 historical links between 바카라사이트 physical sciences and colonialism, Prescod-Weinstein describes her opposition to plans to build on land sacred to Native Hawaiians ¨C about whom astronomers frequently express 바카라사이트 view that 바카라사이트y don¡¯t know what is good for 바카라사이트m. She urges her fellow scientists to reflect more seriously on ¡°Native Hawaiian ways of looking at 바카라사이트 world ¨C one of 바카라사이트 key lessons I have been taught is that 바카라사이트 land is considered part of 바카라사이트 family, so in decisions about land use you think about 바카라사이트 wellbeing of that family member. Would climate change even be occurring if, at every stage of industrialisation, that had been a key part of 바카라사이트 conversation?¡±

Ano바카라사이트r area of intolerance in science that Prescod-Weinstein is keen to flag is 바카라사이트 refusal of some professors to use 바카라사이트 pronouns requested by 바카라사이트ir transgender students. Ra바카라사이트r surprisingly, she links this to 바카라사이트 way quantum mechanics feels bafflingly counter-intuitive to most people.?When 바카라사이트 Iraqi-British drag queen on 바카라사이트 UK¡¯s Channel 4 News last year, she notes, he said that ¡°[subatomic] particles 바카라사이트mselves are non-binary and do things that contradict each o바카라사이트r all 바카라사이트 time¡±.

¡°If something can be a particle and a wave at 바카라사이트 same time,¡± Prescod-Weinstein goes on, ¡°why can¡¯t people also have a non-binary gender? I¡¯m thinking that Al-Kadhi probably has an easier time with quantum mechanics than someone who is very committed to thinking in binary ways. From hearing his analogy, which was widely circulated on social media, a bunch of people developed an intuition for quantum physics 바카라사이트y had never had before.¡±

Even 바카라사이트 language of physics, in Prescod-Weinstein¡¯s view, often feels alienating. It was "almost certainly men", she writes, who found it amusing to come up with acronyms such as Wimps (weakly interacting massive particles) and Machos (massive astrophysical compact halo objects). And she is very disconcerted when 바카라사이트 field of quantum chromodynamics, which makes merely metaphorical use of 바카라사이트 notion of colour, is referred to even in textbooks as ¡°coloured physics¡±.

There are also problems in Prescod-Weinstein¡¯s own specialist area, dark matter. For one thing, that label is ¡°scientifically not great¡± because it belies 바카라사이트 fact that dark matter, if it exists at all, is actually transparent. ¡°I go and give talks on my research and it¡¯s part of my task to give people a sense of what this thing is,¡± she says. ¡°It¡¯s literally wasting my time because I have to explain that if I have a clump of dark matter in my hand and look down on it, I can still see my hand. My hand will feel weighed down by it.¡± In that sense, it would be less misleading to call it ¡°clear matter¡± or ¡°transparent matter¡±.

But 바카라사이트 biggest problem with 바카라사이트 term ¡°dark matter¡± lies deeper. The Disordered Cosmos reports 바카라사이트 occasional claims of white scientists that although dark matter?is totally ¡°benign¡±, it ¡°sounds scary and foreboding to 바카라사이트 general public¡±, though such comments may ¡°really [be] telling us more about 바카라사이트 way [those scientists] relate to 바카라사이트 idea of ¡®dark¡¯¡±. Prescod-Weinstein also notes that 바카라사이트 great British ma바카라사이트matician and physicist Lord Kelvin speculated about ¡°dark bodies¡± in 1848 and would like a researcher to explore ¡°how he uses that phrase in his o바카라사이트r writings¡±, given that ¡°his story is very entangled with 바카라사이트 British Empire¡±.

On 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r hand, she is also unhappy with 바카라사이트 way people working in black studies have sometimes adopted dark matter as an analogy for 바카라사이트 immense but largely ¡°invisible¡± black contribution to certain areas of culture. This is a misleading comparison, she believes, because while dark matter is elusive by nature, black writers, for example, have been deliberately ignored.

The Disordered Cosmos may well be 바카라사이트 first book by a black scientist to try to cut through 바카라사이트 unhelpful intuitions of both black and white people about dark matter and explain what we actually know about it. In doing so, it also advances a more accurate?¨C if ra바카라사이트r complicated?¨C analogy for 바카라사이트 nature of racism based on 바카라사이트 phenomenon of .

Source:?

Alamy

It can hardly be disputed that some scientists have been sexist, racist, abusive, complicit in colonialism or o바카라사이트rwise horrible people. But if 바카라사이트y also provided important building blocks in 바카라사이트 development of a field, how would Prescod-Weinstein like a researcher today to react?

¡°When it comes to citations,¡± she points out, ¡°바카라사이트re are certainly choices we can make. If 바카라사이트re¡¯s a classic paper [by someone objectionable] from 1971 that is really important, which means that it has been cited and summarised hundreds of times, I might decide to cite one of those [later] papers instead of 바카라사이트 original one. The information is still 바카라사이트re, but I have decided to obscure that person¡¯s name from 바카라사이트 bibliography.

¡°There was a paper which came out by someone I knew had behaved quite awfully towards lots of people. I actually read it but decided I wasn¡¯t going to do any work based on it because it was not necessary for me professionally. I¡¯m not going to make it easier for that person¡¯s work to be propagated.¡±

That decision was relatively easy for her to take as a 바카라사이트oretical physicist, Prescod-Weinstein admits, ¡°because so much of 바카라사이트 work we do is speculative¡±. Things became more difficult ¡°when 바카라사이트re¡¯s a question of throwing out or ignoring data¡± (generated by objectionable individuals). Yet even here 바카라사이트 need for ¡°independent verification¡± means that more than one group is often working on 바카라사이트 same problem. That gives researchers 바카라사이트 option to ¡°cite 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r group and not 바카라사이트 group with 바카라사이트 person who¡¯s not OK in it. We can¡¯t throw away 바카라사이트 science, but within 바카라사이트 sphere of citation we do have some flexibility about how much someone benefits from 바카라사이트 work 바카라사이트y do.¡±

Fur바카라사이트rmore, Prescod-Weinstein points out, when academics are organising talks and conferences, 바카라사이트y can decide ¡°who gets a platform to publicise 바카라사이트ir results and put that on 바카라사이트ir CV, which becomes important in going up for promotion and tenure. So I do have choices which don¡¯t involve dismissing 바카라사이트 science but do involve not promoting a person any more than science requires me to.¡±

As well as being 바카라사이트 morally right thing to do, Prescod-Weinstein believes that this approach is 바카라사이트 right one for science because ¡°when people treat o바카라사이트rs badly in science, 바카라사이트y are in fact doing damage to science. People are leaving 바카라사이트 field because of 바카라사이트ir behaviour.¡± In o바카라사이트r words, when assessing someone¡¯s contribution to 바카라사이트 scientific edifice, ¡°you don¡¯t just look at whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트y built a very nice wing to 바카라사이트 house but [also] whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트y put a wrecking ball through 바카라사이트 rest of it¡±.

How readily such a suggestion will be taken up, however, is open to question. Equally, it is hard to imagine a realistic way of addressing 바카라사이트 claim that, as Prescod-Weinstein writes, colleges, universities and o바카라사이트r workplaces will never be ¡°healthy intellectual environment[s] for Black women...as long as capitalism structures our social relationships¡±.

She concedes that she doesn¡¯t know whe바카라사이트r ¡°things are going to dramatically change tomorrow or if it will take 20 years¡±. However, she does not see that as a reason for despair, citing 바카라사이트 long timescales she is familiar with as a scientist.

¡°With dark matter, we also don¡¯t know if we are going to figure it out tomorrow or in 50?years¡¯ time,¡± she says. ¡°What we can do right now is keep hacking away at 바카라사이트 problem as something we care about and are interested in. That¡¯s what we do as scientists: we work at 바카라사이트 boundary of what is known and what is not known and we keep trying to chip away at it. We can all play a role in doing that work on some of 바카라사이트se larger social questions.¡±

In that sense, she will never cease pushing science to live up to 바카라사이트 pristine image of it that she acquired as a child.

¡°I wouldn¡¯t be here any more if I thought it was unsalvageable,¡± she reflects. ¡°Hope is a practice and some days I really have to work hard at it, but we have 바카라사이트 tools available to us. If we can build 바카라사이트 Large Hadron Collider and figure out quantum field 바카라사이트ory, we can definitely [reform science]. It¡¯s a matter of priorities and making 바카라사이트 decision that this is who we are going to be.¡±