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The Stolen Credit For What Makes Up the Sun
StartsWithABang writes: Sure, it's easy today to look at the Sun and know it's a ball of (mostly) hydrogen, generating energy by combining those protons in a chain into helium through the process of nuclear fusion. But before we even knew that nuclear fusion was possible, we needed to figure out what the Sun was made out of, a more difficult task than you'd imagine. The credit was given to Henry Norris Russell (of Hertzsprung-Russell diagram fame), but he completely stole the work from a woman you never heard of: his student, Cecilia Payne, after discouraging her from publishing her work on the subject four years prior.
he completely stole the work from a woman you never heard of: his student, Cecilia Payne,
Fuck off with that sensationalist garbage. He didnt "steal" anything. He admitted he was wrong and that she was right when it became clear that she was.
> The credit was given to Henry Norris Russell (of Hertzsprung-Russell diagram fame)
Citation?
This site has been completely taken over by man-hating feminists.
This is not even wrong. Payne had the idea first, Russell thought it was wrong, Russell later changed his mind and gave Payne credit: http://blogs.britannica.com/20... His work cites hers.
This is how science is supposed to work, although there is always a factor of fame involved in credit-giving, and women have in general not been as forceful in claiming or defending credit as men.
Furthermore, how many people claiming to be "outraged" by this were even aware of who had been given credit for figuring out the composition of the sun in the first place? Who amongst us is "shocked, shocked" that Russell--whom they had been giving credit to all these years, citing in papers, talking up at cocktail parties--didn't actually make the discovery that is commonly and incorrectly attributed to him?
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Bad form, Medium "writer."
I say that we all write to our members of Congress (for those of us who are American) proposing a manned mission to the surface of the Sun in order to see how many write back stating that they support what we say... etc., but don't have the funds to go through it right now. Or whatever.
The article missed the opportunity to mention that the spectral line for helium was unknown at the time, and was first discovered in the sun. Hence the name was adopted from Helios, the Greek god of the sun.
Dox this person and get them fired from their job!!!
-SJW
She made an important scientific breakthrough.
In my opinion, thats very sexy. 10/10, five stars.
I remember reading a book some 10-15 years ago where a statement read something along the lines of:
"The history is riddled with people who made discoveries and people who took credit for them"
But I can't remember the blimmin name of the book! A brief history of time isn't, a history of nearly everything isn't either...
Does anyone know what book I'm talking about?
Did this story, enough already! So some hack reproduced it on the internet, yawn!
And it got more accurate because of skepticism?
Imagine that....
This was the subject of an episode of the Neil deGrasse Tyson Cosmos. The summary is pretty sensationalistic too. Hertzsprung discouraged his student from publishing because he thought she was wrong. When she was persistent and turned out to be right, they published. Professors always get the credit for what their students do.
Also, what is "combining those protons in a chain"?
HA! This reminds me of my days at Rice University, in the early 70s. The Post grad students there each year would award one of their number the "Young Marsden" award. It was presented to the student whose work had been most egregiously ripped off by a faculty member that year. It was called the Young Marsden award, in memory of Marsden, since Rutherford and Geiger got credit for his work on alpha particle scattering
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
They invented the sun. They ate the apple.
Oh please. I was taking a swipe at Dice, not at women.
Grad students are to be used up and thrown away.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
I'm pretty sure the AC was making a sarcastic, joke post. A person who was being serious wouldn't sign their post with "SJW".
Sure, it's easy to today to look at slashdot and know that it's all (mostly) clickbait, generating revenue for Dice by tricking viewers into visiting websites who think that they can make money by spraying advertizing onto eyeballs in a vain attempt to...
Damn! I never realized how hard it is to make convoluted run-on sentences. So much for my attempt at sarcastic humor.
I have newly-found respect for the Slashdot editors.
I had to read the summery to find out what stolen credit cards had to do with the sun :(
If you want to discuss this with me further, I'll be staying in the garage for the next few weeks.
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm pretty sure the AC was making a sarcastic, joke post. A person who was being serious wouldn't sign their post with "SJW".
Ah! I didn't realize "SJW" was a thing until I just Googled it. My bag of memes has grown.
You should invest in some brain bleach. The term SJW is just a waste of memory that you could use for remembering other memes.
*burma shave joke here*
She made an important scientific breakthrough.
In my opinion, thats very sexy. 10/10, five stars.
Really? It think of sexy and scientifically-productive as kind of orthogonal qualities. Case in point: Marie Curie was undeniably brilliant, but I wouldn't have much of an urge to sleep with her.
I bet you have a "virtual" girlfriend.
This again? This is not news to anyone who is interested in solar science. The only reason for putting it here is because of the feminist angle. The credit was stolen by (gasp!) a man! Because men never get the credit for their ideas stolen by other men, and certainly not by women, who are impeccably honest in their every action. And a woman stealing credit from another woman? Hah! That has never happened in history ever!
Besides, a careful reading indicates that it wasn't so much that her idea was stolen by Russel, or that he did not give credit to her, but that others chose to credit him with the discovery instead.
At any rate, sociopaths and asshats abound, even in the world of science. Yeah, it sucks. That's life with the big boys. Does that call for a general indictment of all men? I don't think so. Those same men eventually set the record straight and she got the credit she deserved. Gosh! Quelle suprise! Men aren't all assholes. What a discovery!
...to use her actual name.
I found this story confusing because when I studied astronomy back in the 1980s, we talked about her extensively, and she was given full credit for her work.
Want an example of a female astronomer who didn't get the credit she deserved? Jocelyn Bell. Nothing like being overlooked for a Nobel.
Sure, it's easy today to look at the Sun
No it's not, unless you're trying to blind yourself. Use eclipse glasses or make a pinhole projector.
I think what you meant was "look at Wikipedia [etc]"
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I know how it sounds to complain that your one submission (out of the many /. receives) didn't get accepted, but I've tried submitting this recent scientific discovery (published in Nature Chemistry) a few times. IMO it's perfect material for Slashdot: a interesting new hypothesis (about a supposedly "well-understood" reaction) put to the test via regularly evolving experiments and apparatuses. And it was even largely funded through Youtube viewers (who the lead scientist thanks in the paper) and documented with (at least one) well-done video.
/. never ran it. I can't help but think that part of the problem is that the scientist is Dr. Phil Mason, aka thunderf00t, who is known for his vids that expose Atheism+ and anti-Gamergate types as fools. Think about the lousy submissions that do often make it on the front page, especially those that push an agenda.
But
This is why things like Gamergate (and Slashdot's atrocious coverage of it) matter, even if you yourself don't personally care about videogames; it is a fight against neo-puritans who want to filter ALL types of content (not just games, comics, music, movies, etc) you're allowed to see, and refuse to acknowledge the work of those who don't buy into the "narrative."
P.S. Clearly I'm biased, so if any of you think that my article submission is unworthy for some other reason, let me know (seriously).
I think that SJW is a quite appropriate subject to bring when talking about this article.
Let me list a few ways in which just the summary is wrong, deliberately twisting the truth so that SJW can get their righteous anger on.
o Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin is not someone I have not heard of. She was a professor at Harvard, a department chair, and hers is a name that you are very likely to hear even if you have just taken classes there.
o Her credit was not stolen. The man who dissuaded her from publishing part of her theory thought that the claim, unsupported, would expose her to ridicule. He did not do it to steal the credit - once he actually proved the claim, he gave her credit in the paper, and actually admitted there, without having to, that he was originally wrong.
And seriously, do we have to twist the facts to make things more interesting? There are enough wrongs to get angry about, and every time lies that are meant to inflame are discovered, assholes get to cast doubt on other, true injustices.
No good deed goes unpunished...
She made an important scientific breakthrough.
In my opinion, thats very sexy. 10/10, five stars.
Really? It think of sexy and scientifically-productive as kind of orthogonal qualities. Case in point: Marie Curie was undeniably brilliant, but I wouldn't have much of an urge to sleep with her.
Well her husband Pierre Curie apparently did. They had two children: Irène (scientist and Nobel laureate, along with her parents) and Ève (writer and pianist.)
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
It seems like we need to twist everything possible to provide support for some political agenda or another. It's not limited to social justice types, but they do seem to be prominent users of the technique.
It's also interesting to note that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy contains the following entry for the 3rd rock from the Sun: Mostly harmless. Someone else submitted a better description ("third rate planet") but it was dismissed because it was written by a Dick.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
her mistake was to give the paper to Amelia Earhart for air mail delivery!
In fairness, she could possibly have delayed graduation another four years while gathering evidence to try to prove her hypothesis herself before publishing, but there was no guarantee she was right, and she was probably long past ready to graduate and get on with her life. I know I certainly was after only six years in college. Or she could have published prematurely and garnered the usual ridicule for making an outrageous claim without solid evidence, likely destroying her reputation and career before it even began - even after she was proven right the damage would likely have already been done. Even a man would be hard pressed to take that bet, and as a women in an almost exclusively male field she faced far greater risks of professional ostracization.
Instead she chose the safe path: didn't publish, graduated, and rode her credentials into what sounds like a very respectable career - an especially impressive accomplishment for a woman in a time and field that makes today's most mysogynistic CS departments look positively egalitarian. Her name may not have ended up in as many of the history books as she deserves, but she also didn't spend the time necessary to prove her hypothesis, and it sounds like her professor was (unusually?) honorable and gave her credit for it after he (aka, his future grad students) did the work of gathering sufficient evidence.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Good. More sexily smart women for those of us who appreciate them.
Nobody considers it all that strange when a woman falls in love with some brilliant gnome for his mind, why should it be any different if the genders are reversed?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The sun is powered by electricity, not nuclear fusion.
Now the Sun is stealing credit card numbers?
Of course the summary's wrong, it's clickbait for StartsWithABang at medium.com.
If you remember, that's the hiptard who thinks he knows more about designing space probes than people who design space probes.
He's the Bennet Haselton of astronomy.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It took all her years of graduate research and effort, and four additional years, and finally someone with the stature Russell agreeing with her, to overturn the consensus that believed her conclusions were wrong.
If her supervisor hadn't have been Russell, it would have taken longer. And it would have taken much much longer if there had been anyone with a strong vested interest in her being wrong, say a political agenda depending on sun composition or many scientists trying to maintain a funding source to study sun composition.
That is the reality of science then, and now.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Jeez. Troll?
I'd have gone for Sarcastic, were that an option. Or perhaps Mildly Amusing.
Somebody's gotta get their humor detector recalibrated, and I'm pretty sure it's not me.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
He was French. They'll fuck anything if it's warm.
I bet you have a "virtual" girlfriend.
No, I've realized I can't get a date with Lisa Randall no matter what...
Fuck you, you piece of shit
He was French. They'll fuck anything if it's warm.
Doesn't have to be warm ...