“In the Pythagorean system, thinking about numbers, or doing mathematics, was an inherently masculine task. Mathematics was associated with the gods, and with transcendence from the material world; women, by their nature, were supposedly rooted in this latter, baser realm.” ThinkingWorldNumbersMaterialsTasksMathematicsRealmsLatterRootedMasculineTranscendenceSystems ThinkingMaterial World Author:Margaret Wertheim
“I don't know of any science writing going on in women's magazines, unless you count medical stories about things like breast cancer. I still think there's a huge problem about how we can actively engage a wider range of women. I'm not saying women must be a separate audience - I'm just responding to the reality that the majority of people who do read science magazines are male. That's not a value judgment; it's a statistical fact.” PeopleThinkingWritingProblemRealityValuesAudienceJudgmentCancerMedicalBreast Cancer Author:Margaret Wertheim
“Seeing and playing with physical objects can enable access to symbolic ideas. When I studied physics and math at university it was all done through equations and textbooks whereas artists go to art school and start making stuff; they fling paint at the walls, they dance and bash things together with giant bits of metal. Our society has come to think of science as being a very abstractified thing, and art as being a materialized thing.” ThinkingArtDoneSchoolTogetherArtistWallPaintMathPhysicsMetalsFlingBash Author:Margaret Wertheim
“One way to think about a pure hyperbolic surface is that it's the geometric opposite of a sphere. If you look at a sphere, the curvature is the same everywhere, as opposed to, say, an egg, which clearly does not curve the same everywhere. This is what makes spheres geometrically important. Mathematically speaking, a sphere has positive curvature and a hyperbolic surface has negative curvature, but both have constant curvature everywhere.” ThinkingImportantNegativeGeometric Author:Margaret Wertheim
“Almost all major scientific projects today are huge collaborations, yet we still have this public obsession with the idea of the individual scientific genius. One of my goals as a science communicator is to celebrate the collaborative dimensions of science, which I think will be critical for facing the ecological and resource challenges ahead. In a sense, we are all corals now.” ThinkingTodayIndividualGoalChallengesGeniusObsessionCelebrateCollaborationEcological Author:Margaret Wertheim
