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

Post by themarkn » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 10:54 PM UTC

rjf72 wrote: post #440

themarkn wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social, historical, and cultural factors undoubtedly make the level of effort required to be successful as a woman in tech or science spaces higher than the level of effort a man has to make for the same level of success (if you could control everything else). This can be true without any derogatory implication about the inherent capabilities of women generally. That you can't tell the difference astonishes me.

What do you base your first sentence on? Unsurprisingly there is now research indicating that female candidates are now twice as likely to be chosen as equally qualified men for tenure track positions in university science departments. [1] And I'm sure my computer science class was no exception in that the generally ~three females in the class had about 90% of the rest of the class willing to do any and everything th…

Post by thrwwy192783 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 11:51 PM UTC

daosulta wrote: post #502

Redirect your confusion towards that unprofessional media outlet. What Dr. Bouman has to do with this? Read or listen to her interviews, she always highlights that it was a team effort.

Post by heartbreak » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 12:31 AM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #181

billfruit wrote: post #171

Was making a photographic image the main aim of the project? Or is the image just a byproduct? I mean hard to imagine such a large project being taken up, for the benefit of public being able to see a picture of the black hole. Would this kind of multi telescope effort be capable of producing surface images of extra solar planets for example?

It wasn't a photographic image (they're using radio waves, not visible light). This is a visual representation of the radio waves. And yes, this is one way of representing the data. I'm not sure exactly what your question is though, as actually getting this data is really important to confirm a variety of theories and also to potentially open up new avenues for investigation. And this cost orders of magnitude less th…

Post by victor106 » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 1:04 AM UTC

jachee wrote: post #480

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People generally value fairness and crediting people unfairly goes against that. If it appears to you that other members of the team might have contributed just as much or even more but weren't credited accordingly, then that goes against this "instinct", and why shouldn't it? You're missing the point, the question is whether she was unfairly credited or not.

Meanwhile, capitalism is wholly predicated on unfairness, where the "haves" exploit the "have nots" to get as much for themselves as they can. Why does a woman getting "credited unfairly" strike a nerve when it happens every day that a CEO takes singular credit for an entire corporation worth of people's work with no "Unfair credit!" reaction?

Post by pgreenspun » Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 1:22 AM UTC

shaki-dora wrote: post #504

pgreenspun wrote: post #493

The journalists and Facebookers who are excited about a person who has done some work as a computer programmer... how much would you have to pay them to sit through the first hour of an intro programming class? (Maybe coding is like public transit. People think it is a great idea for everyone other than themselves.)

That... seems like an extremely malevolent take on this? She has a doctorate from MIT and isn't being glorified for turning on a computer, but for her algorithmic work squeezing information out of the gravitationally mangled paths of spurious photons reaching us after 80 million years. That "learn to code" meme has also become a favorite of the alt-right to go after anyone they don't like.