Author Archives: Athene Donald

Do You Believe It’s All Your Fault?

Posted on 2 May 2014 by Athene Donald

Currently I spend far more time giving talks around gender issues than about my science. I don’t know what I feel about this. I am, after all, a physicist not a psychologist or social scientist but increasingly I seem to … Continue reading →

Posted in Athena Swan, career progression, Equality, MIT, Unconscious bias, Women in science | Comments Off on Do You Believe It’s All Your Fault?

An Iconoclastic and Flirtatious Master

Posted on 27 April 2014 by Athene Donald

I am currently reading Patricia Fara‘s recent book Science: A Four Thousand Year History which cuts an interesting swathe through different cultures, different individuals and different discoveries (sometimes even the same discovery in different places). It is not your average … Continue reading →

Posted in book review, China, Desmond Bernal, History of Science, Joseph Needham, Lu Gwei-Djen, Patricia Fara | Comments Off on An Iconoclastic and Flirtatious Master

Hacked Off

Posted on 22 April 2014 by Athene Donald

Can one ever escape the workaday grind, successfully avoid slipping over the edge to descend into the chaos I wrote about a little while ago or even manage merely to keep one’s cool despite provocation? There are so many things … Continue reading →

Posted in hacking, Science Culture, social media, twitter, vacation | Comments Off on Hacked Off

A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Prejudice Go Down

Posted on 17 April 2014 by Athene Donald

I wasn’t really paying attention to the radio. I was busy cooking, but it sounded to me as if the question Clive Anderson asked the film-maker Andrea Calderwood on Saturday’s episode of Loose Ends amounted to ‘how come a nice … Continue reading →

Posted in Equality, interviews, Jenny Saul, Unconscious bias, Women in science | Comments Off on A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Prejudice Go Down

The Stuff of Brains

Posted on 12 April 2014 by Athene Donald

That migraine I was waiting for finally struck this week. Amazingly it didn’t throw my life into disarray, because it hit me during a week I was supposed to be having ‘off’. Consequently it only spoiled a day of relaxation, … Continue reading →

Posted in cognitive illusion, Daniel Kahneman, Matthew Lieberman, neuroscience, self-affirmation | Comments Off on The Stuff of Brains

Science and Nerves at the BBC

Posted on 6 April 2014 by Athene Donald

Last week you would have found three professors gathered nervously together in the depths of (Old) Broadcasting House waiting for the studio to be ready to air the week’s broadcast of In Our Time. Three professors who had never met … Continue reading →

Posted in Andrea Sella, BBC, Communicating Science, education, In Our Time, Justin Wark, Melvyn Bragg | Comments Off on Science and Nerves at the BBC

On Saying No

Posted on 1 April 2014 by Athene Donald

The comments on my last post have prompted me finally to write this one, one that I have had in mind for a few weeks. In fact, ever since I gave a talk at Merton College, Oxford, when an audience … Continue reading →

Posted in CV, opportunity, Research, Science Culture, Women in science, workload | Comments Off on On Saying No

Living on the Edge of Equilibrium

Posted on 26 March 2014 by Athene Donald

Last week my bike got a puncture. So what, you might ask. In itself this is totally trivial, but it also represents the way the trivial gets in the way of everything else. A puncture for me represents potential disaster. … Continue reading →

Posted in accidents, luck, Science Culture, stress, workload | Comments Off on Living on the Edge of Equilibrium

Considering the Historical Context

Posted on 20 March 2014 by Athene Donald

At a talk I gave in Sheffield last week the local MP Meg Munn remarked on the fact that, being a non-scientist, she had learned a lot about how science is done from reading my blog (in particular this one, … Continue reading →

Posted in History of Science, lectures, Newton, Teaching, Von Guericke | Comments Off on Considering the Historical Context

Getting the Writing Right

Posted on 15 March 2014 by Athene Donald

As one moves through life, there are many different types of writing one needs to master. Schooling may produce a standardised kind of essay which is of only limited use when it comes to writing one’s thesis. Many universities will … Continue reading →

Posted in Communicating Science, references, Science Culture, self-delusion, Thesis | Comments Off on Getting the Writing Right