Views from the Reading Room

Paris Pismis

1911-1999

An Armenian born in Istanbul, Pismis was the first woman to attend university in Turkey, obtaining a degree in mathematics in 1937. When she moved to Mexico in 1942 she became the first person, male or female, to become a professional astronomer in Mexico. She worked at the National Astronomical Observatory of Tacubaya, part of the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM in Spanish). There she started teaching the first official classes in astronomy in Mexico. Pismis died on 1 August 1999, leaving as a legacy a community of over a hundred of astronomers currently working at UNAM. She discovered 20 open clusters and 3 globular clusters and worked on the first explanations for the spiral structure of galaxies.

Originally from Turkey, she met her husband at Harvard Observatory, with whom she moved to Mexico.

With a profession that lasted more than 50 years, Pismis published over 100 scientific papers.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

1900-1979

Born in Great Britain, Payne carried out her scientific work at Harvard University in the USA. Her Doctoral thesis (the first astronomy thesis ever carried out by a woman in Harvard) demonstrated that hydrogen is the main component of stars, something taken for granted nowadays but which represented a real change of paradigm in 1925. In spite of working at Harvard for almost two decades, she was not considered as an official astronomer until 1938. In 1956 she became the first female professor at Harvard.

A scholarship for women in science allowed her to move to Harvard Observatory in 1923.

The verification of Einstein’s theory of relativity with the solar eclipse in 1919 stimulated Payne’s interest in astronomy.

The bill is expected this autumn.

If it passes, the private sector, as well as the voluntary sector, will be encouraged to bid to run schools, youth centres, care homes, libraries.

Every public service – except the military and judiciary – will be on offer to companies whose first priority is to make a profit.

We don't have left-wing parties in the UK. What we have instead are three right-wing parties, one of which has a radical ultra-right arm, who are obsessed with free-market monetarist policies beyond the point of common sense. [...] There is no society in their philosophy, just a collection of individuals competing against one another.

[...]

Britain's economy has barely grown since the austerity measures began. We have the highest level of unemployment in fifteen years. The government has slashed public-sector jobs, putting more than 100, 000 people out of work. These deficit-reduction policies have failed to revive the business confidence that was supposed to encourage private-sector hiring. No effort has been made to stimulate growth by spending, because this runs counter to the right's myth that all government spending is wasteful and harmful.

This is blundering idiocy. Any fool can see that these policies are driving the country into the ground, but our glorious leaders are so wrapped up in their dogma, that they'd rather destroy the economy for a generation, than admit they're wrong.