Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 547 posts

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#51

Post by amrrs »

matt4077 wrote: post #47
amrrs wrote: post #11

I'm not biased anyway but thinking Is it fair to attribute this entire thing to one person leaving out the team of collaborators? Doesn't it sound like what happens with Jobsism? Edit: While I'm being rapidly downvoted, I'd like to clarify that I didn't mean to demean this because it's a female nor any of the feat this research has achieved. My point was only about why is it reported as if individual feat while many…

It's a scientific feat that's ranked in the top 50 HN stories of all time, yet you somehow feel a profile of the central figure is somehow inappropriate? How would you rate "Meet Robert Oppenheimer, father of the bomb"? I'd also love anyone to point me to any similar discussion on Elon Musk and one of his companies.

Clarity: I definitely didn't mean to demean her effort or profile. I'm just pointing out how media outlets are reporting this feat.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#52

Post by ilarum »

killjoywashere wrote: post #49
govg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what the idea behind posting this is? In a large scale project rarely does someone high up the command chain do any of the "grunt" work (i.e. programming). Also, by training she appears to be dealing more with theory than the actual implementation aspect of this all.

ok, so just so everyone is clear, the point between parent and grandparent is Andrew Chael seems to have written a hell of a lot more code than Katie Bouman, for a lot longer * achael 566 commits 850,275 ++ 131,044 -- * klbouman 90 commits 2,410 ++ 1,265 -- However, at least at the level of reading the commit messages, Katie's are pretty math heavy: "fixed bug in the fake briggs weighting" "starting to fix chirp prob…

https://github.com/achael/eht-imaging/commit/886b07b8a00d142...

one commit with 524,306 additions. adding a model.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#53

Post by zadwang »

THE woman? I am not sure how other women team members should feel about the article. Or even men. She may made important contribution but so did many others. Attributing the credit to a single person in such a large scale project is not fair to any team member. I am sure it is not her fault but whoever pushed to have BBC publish a story like this is hurting the science endeavor overall more than helping it.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#54

Post by simias »

dalemyers wrote: post #44

I've read comments on Hacker News for many years, often finding them a useful source of additional information and insight into details from whatever the linked piece is. Sometimes these threads are full of only subtly veiled hatred and leave me with a feeling of disgust. This thread is one of those. There have been countless threads over the years where a man gets the credit for something a team has worked on and th…

In my experience this is common for this type of news about "prodigies" on HN. I remember the same types of reactions a few years ago about an article about a child who made the headlines (it even prompted a response by pg IIRC). Was it Malala? I can't remember.

I think it's just that many people feel threatened or inadequate when they (naturally) compare themselves to these people. It's tempting to put them down so that we feel better about ourselves. I think most of us here on HN like to think that we're clever but when people like Katie Bouman get under the spotlight suddenly most of us realize that we're not such hot shots after all.

It's probably worse when it's a woman/child/minority/... because it gives us the convenient excuse of "this is probably a PR stunt" to dismiss them. It's lazy and it's intellectually dishonest but it's also very human unfortunately.

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#55

Post by threeseed »

klohto wrote: post #18
amrrs wrote: post #11

I'm not biased anyway but thinking Is it fair to attribute this entire thing to one person leaving out the team of collaborators? Doesn't it sound like what happens with Jobsism? Edit: While I'm being rapidly downvoted, I'd like to clarify that I didn't mean to demean this because it's a female nor any of the feat this research has achieved. My point was only about why is it reported as if individual feat while many…

~I feel bad for the team. I would rather see the whole team praised for the success not just one person that fits the narrative "women in tech".~ People I right, I made an assumption based on the title and not the content.

Nobody is claiming it is a one person effort. Nobody.

And whilst she is getting more attention it has not come at the expense of anyone else.

And you wonder why women hate to work in IT with comments like yours where you've dismissed her accomplishments simply because she is a "women in tech".

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#56

Post by matt4077 »

antt wrote: post #15
amrrs wrote: post #11

I'm not biased anyway but thinking Is it fair to attribute this entire thing to one person leaving out the team of collaborators? Doesn't it sound like what happens with Jobsism? Edit: While I'm being rapidly downvoted, I'd like to clarify that I didn't mean to demean this because it's a female nor any of the feat this research has achieved. My point was only about why is it reported as if individual feat while many…

I'm annoyed because of the breathless coverage. One would see less hyperbole if a dog had done the work. The worst thing is how soul crushing academia is. I left my physics PhD when I actually started talking to my colleagues and seeing my career trajectory. I bailed as soon as I realized I will be working until my 40s on the per hour pay of a fast food employee. I do not see why you want to push women to a field tha…

It's interesting how you are concerned about your own "career trajectory", yet for women you cite work/life balance and ability to have children.

Edit: I just checked this comment from yesterday, where someone faulted Marissa Meyer for outsourcing her domestic work[0]. Funny story: it's also by you!

But I guess it's all a coincidence. Plausible deniability, right?

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19620176

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#57

Post by baq »

negamax wrote: post #28

Until yesterday, everyone was in awe and gender was nowhere in the picture. But political people will use this for their propaganda (can already see references on social media), unfortunately. Fortunately, gender identity/politics is not the factor for talented people.

This may inspire women to pursue a career in computer science. Is it bad even if it's political?

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#59

Post by simonh »

zadwang wrote: post #53

THE woman? I am not sure how other women team members should feel about the article. Or even men. She may made important contribution but so did many others. Attributing the credit to a single person in such a large scale project is not fair to any team member. I am sure it is not her fault but whoever pushed to have BBC publish a story like this is hurting the science endeavor overall more than helping it.

We see articles about 'the man behind' stuff all the time. Just go to Google News and search for 'the man behind', you'll see pages and pages of them just for the last few weeks. In fact, check out articles with 'the man behind' in the title on HN[0]. It's a common shorthand which I think most of us recognise as not necessarily disrespectful to a team they might have lead.

[0]https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%27the%20man%20behind%27&sort=...

But uh oh, now there's a woman behind something all of a sudden it's a huge problem and the thread is packed with complaints about it. I wonder why that is?

Re: Katie Bouman, the computer scientist behind the first black hole image

#60

Post by mhsabbagh »

Traster wrote: post #43
mhsabbagh wrote: post #29

This is extremely misleading and fake news. 200 scientists from 40 countries participated in the project [1], not just this one. Saying that she's the one "behind the first black hole image" is clearly pushing for some propaganda, ignoring all other people work. I have also seen countless tweets on Twitter that feature both her picture and Margaret Hamilton, saying that "The first one took us to Moon, and the second…

You're conflating two things. There is an EU project to observe and measure the environment around a black hole. It is a project involving 200 people going back many years - as is stated explicitly in the article you are commenting on. Katie Bouman was the scientist in charge of the project of taking the enormous amount of data and translating that into an actual image. Not only does the article state that the larger…

No I am not, in order to create the image they observed the black hole for years, which is coming from the work of the people I linked to in my source, 200 people from 40 countries and all the other astronomers, being the team who just produced the image from the data is relatively smaller effort comparing to the overall work of all the people involved for years. I am not blaming her, I didn't say she's the one pushing this thing, I am blaming this BBC article. She never said "I am the one".

Yes she was in charge of the team responsible of producing the image from the data, it doesn't mean in anyway that she's "behind the first image of the black hole". Everybody involved is behind the image.

This is not about celebrating those people, it's giving the main chunk of the credit to this person alone. I have no idea why is it such a hard thing to understand or why is this even an issue. Claiming that this person is the only "crucial" person involved is a straightforward lie. If that's how the media has been doing it for 30 years, then the media needs to change and fix their lies.

Post reply on HN