Computer Intensive Physics Robert G. Fuller

Portugal Conference

March 6, 199810 University of Nebraska - Lincoln

I have had a long history of interest in the role of women in physics. It turns out that if you search "women" and "physics" in the "InfoMall" the earliest article in the database about the role of women and physics was published in 1937. So I asked my students read this article, it is written by a man to see why he says there are so few women in physics in 1937. He makes a list of why he thinks there are so few women in physics. Then the students must search the "InfoMall" to find another article on the same topic, published 30, or more, years later.

In the 1960s, the 1970s, and the 1980s, there are many articles about women in physics. The students must read one of these articles and compare how does the thinking of the physics community about women in physics changed from 1937 to a time more recent than 1967. The students write a summary conclusion, their own ideas from these two articles about the role of women in physics in the United States now. Here is a way of getting students to look at physics as a community activity, which you cannot do with a textbook. I call that "Standard Sociology."

But you can also do more creative sociology with the database. I was teaching this course with a post- doctoral person by the name of Hutchings. My name is Fuller . There was a physicist at one time who's name was Einstein.

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