Re: How To Recruit Women to Tech and IT Classes

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

>  >
> >          Here in the United States the college population is now
> > approximately 60% female.  Unless we do a better job recruiting from that
> > population, there won't be many physics departments a decade or two from
> > now.
>
> Oh, I see.  This effort would be in order to protect faculty jobs.
>
> Jim Green

If we think that physics is a worthwhile human endeavor, then it is
important that there be places for physicists who want to work as
physicists to do so. Physics has in the past proved to be a fertile
source of technological development. That much of that development
has come in fields that are not now getting all the headlines is
irrelevant to the overall value of physics to society. We never know
what esoteric field will provide the next avenue of technological
development.

Example: the clocks carried in the GPS satellites are corrected for
the effects of general relativity, and only that correction enables
the precision of the system to be within a few meters. GPS navigation
systems are widely used aboard ships and airplanes, are coming into
use in automobiles and other ground-based areas. It won't be long
before aircraft will be able to do instrument take-off and landing
under the guidance of GPS navigation systems that can give elevation
data to within a meter, thus enabling landings under the most severe
weather conditions, as well as reducing the separation requirements
between airplanes in flight, thus enabling a factor of two or more
increase in the number of airliners that the air traffic control
system can safely handle at any given time. Who would have thought
even thirty years ago that a field like general relativity would have
that level of importance to modern society.

If we don't have enough physicists, not only will we be culturally
poorer, but we won't be getting the advances in technology that we
have become used to.

It's not just jobs.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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