Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Found poetry -- Mary Cartwright

Recently I have been reading about mathematician Mary Cartwright (1900-1998) and working to develop a poem about her -- relying on a fine article/interview by my friend Jim Tattersall published in the The College Mathematics Journal (September 2001).  Her work on the foundations of chaos theory was prominently presented in a 2013 BBC News article.   A couple of days ago my acquisition of Rachel Swaby's book -- Headstrong Women:  52 Women Who Changed Science and the World  (Broadway Books, 2015) -- added to my information about Cartwright.  Here, from quotations offered by Tattersall and Swaby, are some of Cartwright's poetic words (reflecting on the ages and genders of mathematicians). First, speaking of her employment at Cambridge:

I regret to say that my impression 
when I began research was that, in general,
less qualified men were employed quite a lot, 

which eliminated some quite good women.

Mathematics is a young
person’s game mainly because
major advances in the subject come
from approaching problems from
a slightly different perspective than 
previously adopted.

These types of ideas often come
in the course of learning
a subject for the first time.

I will have more of Cartwright in future postings.  To keep up with attitudes and issues concerning women in mathematics visit the Facebook Page Women in Maths.

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