Ask A Genius 1035: Some Women and Contemporary Technologists
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/07/28
Rick Rosner, American Comedy Writer, www.rickrosner.org
Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Independent Journalist, www.in-sightpublishing.com
Rick Rosner: We didn’t talk about women. We didn’t talk about women in technology. So, let’s do that for a second. Rosalind Franklin was famously screwed over by Crick and Watson and maybe Maurice Watkins in the discovery of the structure of DNA. Probably not a fun hang, probably super serious, probably very annoyed with the drunk boys’ atmosphere that probably existed at what was it? Cavendish Labs at either Oxford or Cambridge? Cambridge.
Like, the boys get drunk, and they’re at the pub, and then they go, “Let’s go sneak a look at Franklin’s stereographs or whatever you call crystal graphs.” She took X-rays of DNA, and then this created diffraction patterns. They went and looked at it drunkenly and said, “Oh, this can only be a diffraction pattern or whatever a helical structure created it.” They kind of drunkenly stole her work. They became famous and got the Nobel Prize. They could only give the Nobel Prize to three people for any discovery. That’s the rule. By the time the prize came up, Franklin was dead of cancer.
So, if she had been included, they would have given it to Crick, Watson, and Maurice Wilkins, another guy at the lab. If being pissy is a quirk of greatness, who else? Marie Curie was one of the few people to win a Nobel Prize in two different disciplines, chemistry and physics. Was she a saint? She was a mom. She ruined her health by dealing with all this radioactive stuff, which shortened her life. Who else is a… Megan Ellison is the daughter of multibillionaire Larry Ellison.
So, she’s not a tech billionaire. She’s the offspring of a tech billionaire. And she’s a good producer. She produces a bunch of good stuff: Zero Dark Thirty, Her, American Hustle, and Phantom Thread. Her dad founded Oracle. If her dad is a prick, odds are. But no, she’s a movie producer. Not only is it a big deal to be a good producer.
Ellison is openly lesbian. She owns several motorcycles. So she’s fine. She’s probably not an asshole. Larry Ellison has been married and divorced four times. Probably a prick. So there you go. The general thing is brilliant, but personal quirks, or either exceptionally brilliant or regular brilliant, but in the right place at the right time to become a multibillionaire. In each case, if somebody isn’t an asshole, it’s a matter of luck for the people who are around them.
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