Dry Pleurisy Symptoms

I never dreamed Einstein (thank goodness).

"The young Einstein Marta dreams." So 'a little article appeared on page headline' Youth and School 'La Repubblica, a couple of years ago. An article which talked about science, the discovery that I had done some years before (the first double pulsar, exceptional laboratory to test relativity 'general immodest ed) during my PhD thesis. The journalist had made me pertinent questions, about my work in general, the discovery in particular, then seasoning it all with a pinch of anecdotal, but there was. Nothing compared to what happened 40 years ago in Jocelyn Bell, discoverer, along with his doctoral supervisor Anthony Hewish, pulsars: a meeting on women in science held in Turin little more 'than a year ago, Jocelyn Bell told how , while Hewish journalists asking questions about science, she was asked if his girlfriend, who wore bra size ... He then have given the Nobel for his discovery of his student, but she is not 'even been mentioned (and here we could open a long parenthesis on the Nobel denied to women in science, but maybe we'll talk another time.) Times have changed, machismo then there are clearly 'more' or when there 'is widely, at least in words, condemned and deplored. Unfortunately, however, 'I happen to notice, in some small things, even insignificant, a kind of machismo hidden, perhaps unconscious. If I say "cook" for example, the most 'comes to mind the fat lady who gives you the' scoop of the slop at the university cafeteria, but if I say "cook" conjures up images of the chef in his restaurant Vizzani luxury. If I am the owner an article about a scientific discovery can write "The young Einstein Marta dreams" but I never would dream of writing "The dreams of young Einstein Mario," would not be very serious, very professional, damn it! These things are minor, or anyone, but maybe they are a symptom of something more 'serious.

Marta Burgay

(photo: me and Jocelyn Bell back-to-back ["skin-to-skin," as the photographer just Anglophone :-)] Women and Science after the meeting in Turin)