In MacGuffin’s telling, accelerating charges were only “the fount of yin and yang,” the source of the fields. The “qi” or the energy was only loosely coupled to the fields. At any given point, there was a local energy density proportional to the square of the field intensity, but from moment to moment, fields could be going one way and energy the other. That’s what was happening in the case of the dipole. Radiation fields propagated outward through the in-falling energy – the energy being absorbed by the dipole. The radiation fields only became associated with out-flowing energy past the zero-magnetic-field bubble. They picked up the energy associated with the original static field outside the bubble. I compared the result of the Larmor formula for the radiation energy and integrated the energy density for the static fields outside the bubble. They matched perfectly. That took most of the day to work through what with my babysitting the vacuum chamber and prepping the next glass disk.
I returned to analyzing the gamma-ray data the next day. Once I’d accounted for naturally occurring tin deposits, three major anomalies leapt out at me. I had a radioactive hotspot that dated to the 1600s in southeast China, Fujian Province, and two more hotspots that dated to around 1900, one in England, and the other… the other was right along the Georgia coast centered on Jekyll Island – three mini-Chernobyls that dated to decades, even centuries before the invention of nuclear reactors. “What’s that?” Professor Chen startled me. I hadn’t realized he’d come into the lab – one of the problems trying to work with a vacuum pump running.
“I was trying to date some hotspots and I found some curious anomalies,” I explained. “There are hotspots that look to be just over a hundred years old in England and here on Jekyll Island, and there’s another hotspot that dates back to the 1600s in Fujian Province in China. The dating on that one is a bit…”
“Where in Fujian?” Professor Chen demanded. I zoomed in the map to show him the location. His eyes got big. He whispered something I didn’t understand in Chinese, his voice full of emotion. “Peter.” He looked at me. “You must drop this immediately and forget you discovered it.” He must have seen the confusion on my face. “I am deadly serious,” he continued. “There are certain secrets that must remain so. They will kill you, and me, too, if they know that we know.”
That sure sounded like the Civic Circle. “Who are ‘they,’ and what are these secrets?”
“There are questions that must not be asked, and answers that must not be given,” he replied solemnly. “I am truly sorry to put you in this place. I did not realize where your work might lead and what it might reveal. I can only ask you to trust me and remain silent.” He paused, thinking through the next steps. “I will get a CD for you to burn a copy of the data and analysis. Then, you must delete everything from your machine.”
Naturally, I made a complete copy of the data set to my secure flash drive while he was out of the lab. When he came back, I copied the data over to the CD. “Deleting” a file from a drive merely frees up the space to be rewritten upon – it doesn’t actually remove the data. Before I could point that out to him, he had me download a program that not only deletes, but also rewrites the sectors several times so the data will be – in principle – irrecoverable.
He cautioned me again. “You are young. You are… idealistic. You must forget this and not look into it further. I have done all I can for you. The rest is up to you.”
“Yes, sir,” I acknowledged.
Amit showed up late Sunday night. “What happened?” I asked. “I haven’t heard anything from you.”
“You don’t think I’d actually describe my exploits over the phone or by email do you?” he countered. “They’re listening, you know. To everything.” He regaled me with stories of his conquests. “Two!” he exclaimed. “Two different girls!” He gave me a blow-by-blow account. Literally. Then, exhausted from his vacation, he collapsed. I left early for class and didn’t see him again until lunch time.
“My professor is announcing our big discovery this afternoon,” I told Amit. “Want to come?”
“I have a date with Madison,” he replied. “We’re brainstorming ever more creative ways to enhance equality by promoting messages of universal inclusion and diversity.”
I thought about that a moment. “If everyone’s truly equal, why do we need diversity?”
Amit glared at me. “You’re doing it again – bringing facts to feel-fight.”
“Bring her along,” I suggested with a smile. “It’s a legitimate news story. Maybe you can get her to do real news for once.”
“Not likely,” he said. “She’s only interested if there’s a social justice angle. I don’t suppose your professors’ gamma rays are complicit in the institutionalized oppression of historically underrepresented portions of the electromagnetic spectrum by any chance?”
“Sadly, no,” I replied, “but Professor Graf was a key contributor to the discovery. Maybe she could do a ‘heroic woman overcoming systemic male hegemony to succeed in science’ piece?”
“That angle might work,” he said nodding. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I didn’t need to worry about trying to pack the audience, after all. The auditorium at the Student Center held a healthy crowd. The start of the press conference found Amit and Madison sitting beside me. Amit had a hand on Madison’s thigh and she leaned against him. They seemed awfully friendly. Then, Professor Graf took the podium.
“I’m Professor Marlena Graf of the Georgia Tech Physics Department. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon about a remarkable discovery. Our Gamma Research Group studies gamma rays – the most intense electromagnetic radiation known. Lately, we’ve taken an instrument designed to peer into the deepest reaches of the cosmos and turned it back at our own Earth with surprising results of great scientific, environmental, and commercial significance. It’s my honor to introduce my collaborator, our Principal Investigator, Professor Wu Chen.” Professor Graf stepped down, and Professor Chen approached the podium. I was surprised to see he was wearing one of his trademark Hawaiian-style print shirts, instead of something more conservative.
“I’d like to thank Marlena for her introduction,” he began. “We have discovered we can detect, locate, and analyze terrestrial sources of gamma radiation from space.” He walked the audience through the Chernobyl and Kyshtym results, and showed maps of the fallout from Cold War nuclear testing in such places as Nevada, Kazakhstan, and Algeria. “These maps provide an unprecedented level of detail to show how and where man-made radioactive materials have entered the environment.” He showed examples of how the data could be used to find previously-unknown deposits of uranium and other radioactive ores. Finally, he announced the team’s discovery of antimatter production in lighting storms.
“These are some sexy, sexy results – they did not come easy. Our results were a team effort from a fantastic group of hardworking researchers, graduate students, and even undergraduates. I’d also like to acknowledge the support of our sponsors.”
Professor Chen answered a few questions. Just as the press conference was breaking up, Madison approached the podium. “Professor! Oh, Professor!” she squealed.
Professor Chen had an indulgent look on his face. “Yes?”
“That’s like such a cool shirt!” Madison gushed. “May I get a picture of you?”
“Certainly,” he beamed back at her.
She whipped out a camera. “Right next to the podium with the Georgia Tech logo,” she insisted.
He complied. I took a closer look at the shirt as she was taking her pictures. Sexy, buxom women struck provocative poses, straddled motorcycles suggestively, and, adding insult to social justice injury, wielded firearms with a near orgasmic look of pleasure on their faces. I’d noted it was awfully garish, and I honestly thought, inappropriate for a formal event. However, it was also exactly the kind of shirt Professor Chen made a habit of wearing. I hadn’t much thought about it. Only now, it was too late. What was she up to?
“How’d you’re social justice date go?”
“Jackhammered her like the Berlin Wall!” he proclaimed. “She worked on some column she wouldn’t show me while I did my own homework. Then, I persuaded her she should reject the outmoded mores of patriarchal oppression, assume autonomy of her own body, and express her sexual independence. She found it ‘empowering,’” he said smugly.
“Wait… you encouraged her to exercise her autonomy and empowerment by complying with your demand for sex?”
“Complying with my demand for sex? See,” Amit explained, “when you say it like that, it’s verbal assault and sexual harassment. When the timing is right, though, and I say it – it’s sly and sarcastic. Social justice chicks get wet for dominant social justice dudes who are only acting out traditional hetero-patriarchal roles out of a sense of irony.”
I really didn’t need to know that. Wait a moment, chicks? Plural? “How many social justice ‘chicks’ are you dating?”
“Well,” he looked sheepish, “just the one, but really, you’ve seen the rest of the chicks in our class. Would you want to bang any of them?”
This was getting badly off topic. “You didn’t know what Madison was writing?”
“It was about your professor, but she wouldn’t tell me the details. She seemed pretty excited about it, though.”
I handed Amit the copy of the Technique I’d picked up earlier. Madison’s picture of Professor Chen and his shirt made the front page – a symbol of the pervasive sexism in science and engineering by the “Ramblin’ Wrecks at Georgia Tech” made clear by the institution’s previous disgraceful reaction to a woman heading the College of Engineering. The highlight, though, was Madison’s column.
End the Toxic Hyper-Masculinity of Science
Yesterday morning, wearing a shirt featuring scantily-clad women, Professor Chen of the Georgia Tech Physics Department announced a discovery to help make the world “safe” for even more deadly radiation. Professor Chen’s technique for finding where radiation is and where it goes helps proponents of nuclear technology argue that it can be safely managed and controlled, thus encouraging further proliferation. Proclaiming his results “sexy” and declaring “they did not come easy,” Professor Chen perpetrated the patriarchal narrative that science is the figurative rape of nature. Not content with emboldening those who want to make dangerous nuclear technology more readily available, Professor Chen demeaned and objectified half the human race in the process with his outrageously sexist shirt.
Could any shirt possibly be as bad as all that? Yes it can.
Imagine buxom button-bursting bosoms breasting boobily, amid guns, motorcycles, and other icons of patriarchal domination and violence. Professor Chen may say he respects his female colleagues and students, but his shirt says otherwise. His shirt says, “I have no respect for you as a professional.” His shirt proclaims that science is a boys’ club where women are merely sex objects for the visual pleasure of men. Professor Chen’s shirt visually rapes every woman who sees it, reducing women to pieces of meat that men get to utilize for their sexual pleasure. His shirt marginalizes his female colleagues just to show how laid back he is. Professor Chen isn’t the least bit stuffy, and he’s prepared to throw his female colleagues under the bus to prove it.
Most disturbing of all, no one in the physics department, not even his intimidated and browbeaten female colleagues, thought his shirt was inappropriate. By their failure to take action, they are complicit in his phallic imperialism. The physics department in particular and the so-called “Ramblin’ Wrecks” at Georgia Tech in general have once again exposed their flagrant hateful misogyny to the world.
Despite our best efforts, bigots and sexists like Professor Chen thrive in our society. The systemic patriarchal hegemony of science and engineering provides a breeding ground for their chauvinism. Their rampant sexual objectification triggers an environment wherein sexual harassment is commonplace. This pervasive atmosphere of toxic hyper-masculinity deters even strong, independent women like me from careers in science. Little girls watching Professor Chen get the message loud and clear – science is not for you; stay home, have babies, and bake cookies.
We need to send a different message – a message to Professor Chen and any other scientist who harbors such sexist and ostracizing attitudes. Get out of science. There is no place here for you to demean half of humanity with your archaic bigotry. We need to root out these sexist attitudes so scientists and engineers alike can be taught to think as critically about socially important issues like race and gender as they do about their test tubes and telescopes. This overt sexism is unacceptable, and the perpetrators must be held accountable. None of us can stand on the sidelines. If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem.
I waited for Amit to finish reading. “Wow….” He looked up at me in honest amazement. “No wonder she was so enthusiastic last night. She really outdid herself this time: ‘buxom button-bursting bosoms breasting boobily?’”
Figured he’d focus on that line. “Breasting boobily? Are those even words?”
“They are now,” he replied dryly. “Your professor is in trouble. You know what Gomulka will do with this.”
“He’s going to restart the fight we just won.” I should have made that connection sooner.
“We’re all woman-hating, patriarchal, reactionaries here,” Amit confirmed. “That’s exactly what he’ll say. His first defeat becomes fuel for the fire. First we reject the nice lady professor because we’re all misogynists, and then mean old Professor Chen objectifies women, further illustrating the systemic institutional sexism of Georgia Tech.”
“It’s worse than that.” I explained the results I’d found in Professor Chen’s data.
“Jekyll Island ties in,” Amit nodded. The timing seems reasonable. “But England? And four hundred years ago in China?”
“More like three hundred fifty,” I corrected him, “I think. It’s hard to date it accurately, that far back.”
“Still… it’s not just electromagnetics, then,” Amit said slowly. “They were doing nuclear physics, too, centuries ago and all this scrutiny…”
“Is likely to draw enough attention to bring the implications of Professor Chen’s work to light.” I completed the thought. “We have to stop it. Somehow.”
Amit shook his head. “It’s too late. If we can see how the social justice warriors could use this, I’m sure Gomulka does too.”
Amit was right. It was “Engineering 4 Everyone” Part 2.
“This is a prime example of the hetero-normative oppression that we must root out of our school,” Professor Gomulka explained triumphantly to the class. “Right here on this very campus is a physics professor who epitomizes the toxic masculinity of science. We have to draw a line. To tell the Professor Chens of the world that they cannot demean half of humanity with impunity. This time, we have the advantage. Why did Engineering 4 Everyone fail to achieve its goals?”
It was a Bueller moment. I wasn’t about to volunteer the truth: because Amit and I and the rest of FOG completely out-thought and out-fought him and the rest of the SJWs.
“I should think the answer is obvious to the veteran social justice warriors in the class,” he continued.
That probably wounded Amit’s pride, because he was quick on the uptake. “We lost the momentum. We took too long. We gave the reactionaries time to see what we were doing and to counter it with activism of their own. We lost the initiative. And we failed to de-platform their hate speech.”
“Exactly,” Professor Gomulka beamed at his star pupil. “This time, we will not make the same mistakes, and we will leave nothing to chance. I have it on good authority that the dean will demand Professor Chen apologize at a press conference on Monday. Between now and then, we will put so much pressure on him that his apology wil
l be a prelude to a resignation. If he doesn’t resign, we will see to it that his tenure is revoked and he is fired for his misconduct and the shame he has brought to himself and to this institution. This time we have an advantage! We have a source close to the professor! Peter Burdell actually works in his lab!”
Oh, no. Oh no, no, no, no. I’d done such a good job of partitioning my phony social justice activism from my work with Professor Chen that I had forgotten the first social justice lesson from my first day in class – to pretend to be them was to become them.
“Peter?” Professor Gomulka asked expectantly.
Professor Chen. The man who hired me. The man who mentored me. I had no choice. “Professor Chen must resign,” I said calmly, “and we’re going to make it happen.”
Professor Gomulka grinned. He was so eager to get going that any attempt at subtlety or working behind the scenes through student cut-outs was forgotten. He laid out a four-day campaign culminating in a Friday noon rally by the Campanile and a weekend-long hunger strike for equality. The professor took me aside after class. “Do you know anything that might help us take him down? Any questionable habits or behaviors?”
“Other than his quirky taste in shirts, Professor Chen is actually a nice guy,” I couldn’t help but defend him.
“The fight for social justice may entail certain aspects that in other circumstances we would deplore,” Professor Gomulka offered his friendly counsel. “The sacrifices we must make – and those we must ask of others – are a small price to pay when weighed against the benefit of a just and equitable society, don’t you agree, Peter?”
A Rambling Wreck: Book 2 of The Hidden Truth Page 21
