Headline August 20, 2017/ ''' MATHEMATICS -TECHNOLOGY- MOTHERHOOD '''

''' MATHEMATICS -TECHNOLOGY- 

MOTHERHOOD '''

*BILLIONS AND BILLIONS & BILLIONS* of miles away, deep into recesses of a pitch dark space, -probe, Voyager, majestic on its axis-

Receives a command pulse, and .....Its tiny direction control nozzles,.. fire up, and its axis pivot, with its camera, now pointing towards, mother earth.

A pale- bared, half-pixel appears.

That is your mother earth! ............. Of what great consequence in Universe? That's Mathematics : Rabo, Haleema, Saima, Maynah, Maria, Haram, Haanyia, Hussain, Salar,........in all its glory.

I could go on and on but, time to turn and look towards back Home, and find its still all about even in 21st century:

*How Tech interviews fail girl students/women*. Lets hear what Katharine Zaleski says:

''I am the co-founder of a company that helps clients find ways to diversify their work force. We recently set up an interview of a major company for a senior African-American woman Software-Engineer.

After meeting with the hiring panel, she withdrew her application, telling us she felt demeaned by the all white-male group that failed to ask her any questions about her *coding skills*.

She described how one of the men had made it clear to her that she wasn't a cultural fit and that therefore they didn't need to proceed with technical questions.''

While there may or may not be, many places in Tech that will have a story about an inclusive culture that it's proud to tell............, I turn to the fearless warriors of Mathematics, in a bid to make sense of the World............

Dr. Scientist Ratner and Dr. Scientist Mirzakhani studied shapes that are preserved under more sophisticated types of motions and in higher dimensional spaces. 

In Dr. Ratner's case, that motion was of a shearing type, similar to a strong wind high in the atmosphere. 

Dr. Mizakhani, with my colleague Alex Eskin, focused on shearing, stretching and compressing.

These Mathematicians proved that the only possible preserved shapes in this case are, unlike the snowflake, very regular and smooth, like the surface of a ball.

The consequences are far-reaching : Dr. Ratner's results yielded a tool that researcher have turned to a wide variety of uses-

Like illumining properties in sequences of numbers and describing the essential building blocks in algebraic geometry.

The work of Dr. Mirzakhani and Dr. Eskin has similarly been called............. ''the magic wand theorem' for its multitude of uses, including an application to something called the *wind tree model*

More than a century ago, physicists attempting to describe the process of diffusion imagined an infinite forest of regularly spaced identical and rectangular trees.

The wind blows through this bizarre forest, bouncing off the trees as light reflects off a mirror.

Dr. Mirzakhani and Dr. Eskin did not themselves explore the wind tree model, but other mathematicians used their magic wand theorem to prove that a broad universality exists in these forests:

Once the number of sides to each tree is fixed, the wind will explore the forest at the same fundamental rate, regardless of the actual shape of the tree.

There are other talented women exploring fundamental questions like these, but why are there not more?

In 2015, *women accounted for only 14 percent* of the tenured positions in Ph.D granting math departments in the united States. That is up from 9 percent two decades earlier.

Dr. Ratner's theorems are some of the most important in the past half-century, but she never quiet received the recognition she deserved.

*Berkeley University did not even put out a news release when she died* 

By contrast, Dr, Mirzakhani's work, two decades later, was immediately recognized and acclaimed. World of her death spread quickly -it was front page news in Iran.

*Perhaps that is a sign of progress*.

I first met Dr, Mirzakhani in 2004. She was finishing her Ph.D at Harvard. I was a professor at Northwestern, pregnant with my second child.

Given her reputation, I expected to meet a fearless warriors with a single minded focus.

*I was quiet disarmed when the conversation turned to being a mathematician and a mother*.

''How do you do it?'' she asked. That such a mind could be preoccupied with such a question points, I think, to the obstacles women still face in climbing to math's upper echelons.

*AT Harvard, the number of tenured women research mathematicians is currently ZERO*. 

At my institution, the University of Chicago, until 2011, only one women had ever held such a position.

STUDENTS often tell me that my presence on the faculty convinces them that women belong in mathematics. Though she would have shrugged it off, I was similarly inspired by Dr. Ratner.

Dr. Mizakhani has inspired an entire generation of younger students/women.

There are surprising number of social pressures becoming a mathematician. When you're in the minority, it takes extra strength and toughness to persist.....................

*Dr. Ratner and Dr, Mirzakhani had both*. 

For the inspiration they provide, but above all for the beauty of their mathematics, we celebrate their lives.

With respectful dedication to all the Mathematical thinkers and Scientists of the world, and, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. 

See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW!  -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Sun & Sum '''

Good Night and God Bless

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