Template:Did you know nominations/Anne C. Morel
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Revision as of 12:45, 29 October 2019 by imported>XOR'easter (cmt)
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Anne C. Morel
- ... that Anne C. Morel was the first woman to become a full professor of mathematics at the University of Washington? Source: Feferman and Feferman 2004, p. 200: "She held positions at UC Davis, spent a research year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and ended up as the first female full professor at the University of Washington". In context, this quote must mean only that she was the first professor of mathematics, as e.g. Erna Gunther became full professor of anthropology in 1941.
- Reviewed: Erica Ollmann Saphire
Created by David Eppstein (talk). Self-nominated at 20:39, 6 October 2019 (UTC).
- Lua error: expandTemplate: template "y" does not exist.
These "first woman" hooks tell us nothing about the subject. We would never say the same thing about a man. Though Morel did very complicated research, perhaps you could mention something in this format: "... that Anne C. Morel, the first woman full professor of mathematics at the University of Washington, did this ..." I also saw this in the article:
- ALT1:
... that as a graduate student at UC Berkeley, Anne C. Morel became the mistress of her mathematics advisor, later accusing him of "taking advantage of his position of power"?Yoninah (talk) 00:12, 29 October 2019 (UTC)- We would never say the same thing about a man because it's not surprising for a mathematics professor at that time to have been a man. In contrast, it was so unexpected for such a person to be female that, a couple years after Morel (a logician) died, the local newspaper ran an oblivious op-ed lamenting the nonexistence of women in logic (see the Koblitz source in the article). I deliberately avoided hooks about Tarski, to avoid scandal-mongering for the DYK hook, and to avoid the sexist implication that the only thing that could be interesting or hooky about a woman is her body. (On the other hand I'm happy enough for more people to find out about this problematic side to Tarski.) —David Eppstein (talk) 00:28, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
- ALT2: ... that Anne C. Morel discovered that different countable ordinal numbers could have equal squares? (Or do I need to explain why it is surprising that squaring two different numbers, both positive and one larger than the other, can lead to equal results?) —David Eppstein (talk) 01:28, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
- I prefer ALT2. Being the first woman to attain a prestigious position in a male-dominated field is a significant career accomplishment, but I agree it's better to emphasise her scientific work (see WP:FIRSTWOMAN). We definitely should not ignore her mathematics entirely and focus on a gossipy episode from her personal life (ALT1)! – Joe (talk) 06:51, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
- ALT3 ... that Anne C. Morel, the first female professor of mathematics at the University of Washington, discovered that different countable ordinal numbers could have equal squares?--Ipigott (talk) 09:11, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
- Nice, Template:U. ALT3 is good. Pinging original reviewer Template:U for another review. Yoninah (talk) 10:54, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
- I'm content with the original hook (being the first of a historically marginalized group to do a thing is significant) or with ALT3. XOR'easter (talk) 12:44, 29 October 2019 (UTC)