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...On a more fundamental level, I think one of the serious trends
affecting the future of physics is the increasing lack of experience
that all our young people of both genders have with the physical
world. As the level of technological sophistication of the every-day
world increases, it's not just the humanities types that are
alienated from the physical world, everybody is. As more of the
everyday devices become electronically controlled with computer
interfaces, fewer and fewer of us have any sense that we know how
things really work. Just talk to your average auto mechanic or
appliance repairman.
I used to say that my best students came off the farm. Farm kids
seemed to have a sense, because it's always necessary to get the
grain cut and the cows fed, of forcing their environment (equipment)
to do what needs to be done. That is, it was not strange to them to
work with apparatus until it would do what they wanted it to do. Farm
kids also grow up pretty close to nature, using lots of tools. This
is not to say that I didn't have lots of very able non-farm students,
but I always felt they were relatively disadvantaged.
On the other hand one could also observe that physics itself
has become less mechanical and more relient on electronics and
computation. This could (speculation here) be one reason why women
feel less intimidated by physics research or find it more welcoming.
If that is the case, then the gender shifts that we are seeing are
just a natural consequence these changes, and should not be viewed
with alarm or pointed to with pride. Enough!