Andrew Jaffe: Leaves on the Line

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, “an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.” I — along with more than a thousand other people — have pledged to write about a female role model in technology.

Ada Lovelace was Byron’s daughter and worked with computer pioneer Charles Babbage on his “Computing Engines” — and is widely thought of as the first computer programmer. A reconstruction of the “Difference Engine” is on view at the Science Museum around the corner from here, and if you’re reading this on 24 March, you can go and talk to Ada herself!

But I want to talk not about a programmer, but a computer. That is, a computer named Henrietta Swan Leavitt. In the early 20th Century, some (always male) astronomers had batteries of (almost always female) “computers” working for them, doing their calculations and other supposedly menial scientific work.

Leavitt — who had graduated from Radcliffe College — was employed by Harvard astronomer Charles Pickering to analyze photographic plates: she counted stars and measured their brightness. Pickering was particularly interested in “variable stars”, which changed their brightness over time. The most interesting variable stars changed in a regular pattern and Leavitt noticed that, for a certain class of these stars known as Cepheids, the brighter ones had longer periods. Eventually, in 1912, she made this more precise, and to this day the “Cepheid Period-Luminosity Relationship” remains one of the most important tools in the astronomers box.

It’s easy enough to measure the period of a Cepheid variable star: just keep taking data, make a graph, and see how long it takes to repeat itself. Then, from the Period-Luminosity relationship, we can determine its intrinsic luminosity. But we can also easily measure how bright it appears to us, and use this, along with the inverse-square relationship between intrinsic luminosity and apparent brightness, to get the distance to the star. That is, if we put the same star twice as far away, it’s four times dimmer; three times as far is nine times dimmer, etc.

This was just the technique that astronomy needed, and within a couple of decades it had led to a revolution in our understanding of the scale of the cosmos. First, it enabled astronomers to map out the Milky Way. But at this time, it wasn’t even clear whether the Milky Way was the only agglomeration of stars in the Universe, or one amongst many. Indeed, this was the subject of the so-called “great debate” in 1921 between American astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis. Shapley argued that all of the nebuale (fuzzy patches) on the sky were just local collections of stars, or extended clouds of gas, while Curtis argued that some of them (in particular, Andromeda) were galaxies — “Island Universes” as they were called — like our own. By at least some accounts, Shapley won the debate at the time.

But very soon after, due to Leavitt’s work, Edwin Hubble determined that Curtis was correct: he saw the signature of Cepheid stars in (what turned out to be) the Andromeda galaxy and used them to measure the distance, which turned out to be much further away than the stars in the galaxy. A few years later, Hubble used Leavitt’s Period-Luminosity relationship to make an even more startling discovery: more distant galaxies were receding from us at a speed (measured using the galaxy’s redshift) proportional to their distance from us. This is the observational basis for the Big Bang theory of the Universe, tested and proven time and again in the eighty or so years since then.

Leavitt’s relationship remains crucial to astronomy and cosmology. The Hubble Space Telescope’s “Key Project” was to measure the brightness and period of Cepheid stars in galaxies as far away as possible, determining Hubble’s proportionality constant and set an overall scale for distances in the Universe.

The social situation of academic astronomy of her day strongly limited Leavitt’s options — women weren’t allowed to operate telescopes, and it was yet more difficult for her as she was deaf, as well. Although Leavitt was “only” employed as a computer, she was eventually nominated for a Nobel prize for her work — but she had already died. We can only hope that the continued use of her results and insight to this day is a small recompense and recognition of her life and work.

By far the best article I’ve read about the British healthcare system, appeared this morning… in the New York Times. It discussed the NHS’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the organization that rations pharmaceuticals in the UK (although you’ll rarely hear the word “ration” used).

When NICE’s decisions are discussed in the UK, it is inevitably in the context of some sad, sick patient denied access to some treatment that could extend his life. But this article took the logical, if unpleasant, stand that, given finite resources, some sort of rationing is inevitable. In the US, this is done by the “free” market — the scare-quotes are to remind us that healthcare spending per patient in the US is several times anywhere else in the world. What that means is that it’s great to be rich in the US — quick access to any drug, any test, any procedure, but only if you (or your insurer) will pay. But in the rest of the civilized world health-care is largely provided directly or indirectly by the government, irrespective of the patient’s wealth or employment. This is fair in an egalitarian sense, of course, but not necessarily in the libertarian sense Americans often prefer: why shouldn’t I be able to spend my money if I have it?

Conversely, this correctly pushes some of the criticism back onto the drug companies. Drug pricing is a particularly contrived manifestation of the invisible hand of the market: true costs are muddied by extensive R&D budgets, and demand is confused by governments and insurance companies willingness — or otherwise — to pay. (Elsewhere in the Times, my Imperial compatriot Olivia Judson touches on the interaction of scientists and drug companies as part of a larger piece on science, politics, Bush and Obama.)

This is not to say that the NHS system is perfect. It suffers from an infamous “postcode lottery”, as different geographical parts of the NHS system make different decisions about the way their resources will be used — that is, rationed. And despite the fact that the NHS is one of the largest single employers in the world, it is still too small for its task: initial doctor’s appointments are usually restricted to about ten minutes, and the waiting times for surgery and complicated tests can be months long. But it truly is egalitarian: I once came across Elvis Costello and Diana Krall in an NHS Hospital ER (A&E, as it’s known in the UK).

I would like to think that the passing of one Scooter — Phil Rizzuto, Yankees Shortstop and broadcaster — was of greater cultural significance than the pardonning of the other one (since they didn’t manage to indict the likely mastermind behind the plot before he could resign. Probably not.

Flooding cripples New York subway system:

Flooding from torrential overnight rains crippled the New York City subway system this morning. Delays of at least 30 minutes were reported on all subway lines, and customers were urged to forgo the subways entirely and take buses if possible. The thunderstorm caused havoc across the region, forcing thousands of people, like the pedestrians who crowded the Manhattan Bridge in both directions, to walk to work or work from home.

Of course, Bangladesh, India and Nepal have been struggling under far worse flood conditions caused by the monsoon, as they do almost every year.

My thoughts and sympathy go out to the residents of my old neighborhood, Osney Island, in Oxford, where it’s just started to flood before the waters peak (we hope) later today. Good luck to all the residents — stay strong, stay dry!

Once again, my Union, the University and College Union, has sort-of voted to boycott Israeli academics. It’s only “sort of”, because, like last time, the decision comes about from a vote of activists present at the UCU annual conference, not of the membership at large. Indeed, the vote has been opposed by the General Secretary of the Union, not to mention the British and Israeli governments, the not particularly pro-Israel Observer newspaper, and even the New York Times. No matter what your feelings about the present Israeli government and its actions with respect to the Palestinians, such a boycott is, at best, an empty gesture. At worst, it actively works against progressive causes espoused by the many Israeli academics who are among the vocal critics of their own government. And, of course, it is bad for scholarship, which, we often say, should at least endeavor to rise above politics.

A few weeks ago, the UK’s National Union of Journalists made a similar gesture, one that will likely have even more repercussions for me and other physicists. Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg was slated to give a plenary address at the coming PASCOS meeting at Imperial next month. Unfortunately, and rather bizarrely, Weinberg has decided to use the NUJ’s decision (this was before the UCU’s meetings) as a reason to back out of his engagement, citing this as an example of “a widespread anti-Israel and anti-Semitic current of British opinion, especially in the intellectual establishment.” The crucial word in that sentence is, of course, that meek connective “and”. An anti-Israel bias is pretty evident here, but whether or not this translates into actual anti-semitism remains unclear. (The US, for example, has plenty of pro-Israel anti-semitism in the form of fundamentalist Christians hastening the coming of their rapture/apocalypse, for which a strong Israel seems to be required in a perverse reading of Revelations.) Alas, Weinberg’s not-quite-empty gesture is certainly bad for scholarship at best, and at worst deprives him of an actual pulpit from which he could have propounded his views.

A beautiful but frightening picture of the fire burning near the Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles. Evidence that we were probably never meant to live in that part of the world? (Photo courtesy Monica Almeida/New York Times)

…they are part of an an ancient Jewish conspiracy, and so it pisses off the anti-semites…

Neil Tyson of New York’s Museum of Natural History had an excellent appearance on The Daily Show where he reminds us that “Astrophysicists are a simple people”. John Stewart flipped between slack-jawed incomprehension and good jokes. Better science than most of the real news.

Speaking of the media and science, I spent Tuesday night boozing it up at the Royal Society’s annual “Scientists Meet the Media” party, sponsored by Novartis and the Daily Telegraph. Martin Rees, astrophysicist and Royal Society president, couldn’t help but dis the editor of the (famously right-wing) Telegraph for its politics in a room full of (mostly lefty) Guardian readers for its somehow managing passable science coverage despite its dodgy politics. Scientists and journalists both manage a healthy egotism, and it was amusing to see both groups hawking their wares while pouring free champagne down their throats. OK, our throats — I certainly can’t claim disinterest. If my own experience is a guide, I expect that the supposedly high-powered corridors of scientific power were a bit wobbly in the aftermath.

Update: The Telegraph has got a long article covering the party, studded with science-celebrity gossip (and not much else).

I somehow scored an invitation to a talk by the Prime Minister sponsored by The Royal Society on “Our Nation’s Future”, specifically, on Science Policy.

(Personally, I was pleased to see an extremely large contingent from Imperial present, including Dame Julia Higgins (Principal of our Faculty of Engineering, and Foreign Secretary [!] of the Royal Society), sharing the rostrum with Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, and the PM.)

He was full of pro-science platitudes, how it keeps the UK competitive, and how it is needed, frankly, to save the planet. The major themes were the need for the UK to remain economically competitive, and, in the wake of the Stern Review, of science’s crucial role alongside political will in fighting climate change.

He was fairly explicit in his preference for investment in applied science (i.e., stuff that can make money) over the curiosity-driven, blue-skies (i.e., useless) stuff that, for example, I do for a living (as does the President of the Royal Society, who chaired and introduced the event.) He emphasized science as a career (and tried to seduce the sixth-form students in the audience into believing it could be a reasonable moneymaking proposition). And he admitted, in so many words, that present-day science education wasn’t doing its job. Despite all of this, there didn’t seem to be any new, concrete policy announcements, just a (still welcome) restatement of his government’s (and, presumably, Gordon Brown’s) commitment to supporting — and funding — science.

There was some irony that the talk was given in the Kings’ Centre in Oxford, “an apostolic centre — that is, a regional base for sending trained and committed workers to serve God in this nation and abroad.” Blair himself said that he didn’t think Science and Religion were necessarily in conflict, although I expect many in the audience would disagree. Further irony was provided by the fact that, contrary to the usual order of things, the building that was now a church of sorts had previously been used for science: MRI had been developed there.

He specifically railed against the “anti-science brigade” and in that location I was therefore disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to ask about his Government’s financial support for at least a few schools that teach their students the blatant crypto-religious falsehoods of Intelligent Design, under the auspices of the ‘City Academy’ programme which, to be blunt, lets rich people decide what’s taught in schools.