Under The Microscope

PYTHAGORAS' TROUSERS: GOD, PHYSICS AND THE GENDER WARS by Margaret Wertheim; Fourth Estate Publications, 1997; 297 pp; $29.95.

Not long after Johannes Kepler made his outstanding discoveries in astronomy, Maria Cunitz, whose aim was to simplify Kepler's monumental but difficult planetary tables, met a wall of disbelief. No one believed that a woman was capable of understanding mathematical science, let alone writing a book on the subject. All her life Maria had to struggle to gain recognition. Many people refused to believe the work was her own and thought only a man could have written it.

Even though at first I was skeptical of Margaret Wertheim's theses, as I continued reading I became convinced she was correct. She believes that from its inception physics has been a religiously inspired activity and that its priestly culture has served as a powerful barrier to the entry of women.

With a broad pen the author uses the history of science, physics in particular, to support her argument. In each chapter the work of leading physicists, inevitably male, and their successes are contrasted with the struggles of equally talented women. The prevailing Christian ethic precluded women from all but traditional roles; opportunities for scientific study were not available. Who knows what talent was squandered because women were not given equal access to education and careers?

Along the way the author treats us to a wonderful collection of anecdotes about science's main players, from Pythagoras to Stephen Hawking via Galileo, Newton, Einstein and others. The saga of Galileo, for example, is depicted as a turf war between science and the church over who should have the power to interpret the heavens. And although I had been aware that, whatever his private heresies, Isaac Newton publicly committed his science to the service of religious orthodoxy, I hadn't known of Einstein's quasi-religious attitude towards physics, not to mention his closet misogyny, which had profound consequences for women.

The book details the work of many leading women scientists and the difficulties they had to overcome to obtain recognition. Gabrielle-Emilie Chatelet is one example. She translated and commented on Newton's Principia and introduced France to his work, but wrote her book in secret. She was right to do so as Samuel Konig, her tutor, considered it beneath his dignity to be known only as a tutor and told people he was the author. Eventually Chatelet published the book anonymously.

Marie Curie struggled to gain an education against societal and financial pressures. She eventually triumphed to become the first female professor at the University of Paris as well as the first person to gain two Nobel Prizes. She was, however, never accepted into the French Academy of Sciences. Her achievements testify to what women scientists could achieve given the chance.

The author also beguiles us with potent statistics which clearly show the difficulties women have faced in the study of science. For example, it was not until 1678 that the first woman gained an academic qualification while the first woman professor had to wait to achieve that honour until 1732. Even by 1900 only three women in the United States had been granted PhDs in physics. At Cambridge University the first PhD in physics was awarded in 1926. Harvard University only gave tenure to its first woman physicist in 1992. Today only 3% of full physics professors in the United States are women, although women make up 40 per cent of the scientific workforce.

A final barb the author shares is a quote from nuclear physicist Fay Ajzenberg-Selove; observing that men, including second-rate men, find it easier to gain tenure in physics departments, she remarks wryly that she'll believe discrimination against women has stopped when second-rate women are given tenure.

R. A. Dear, Invercargill

Russell Dear is a Mathematician living in Invercargill