In the Pythagorean system, thinking about numbers, or doing mathematics, was an inherently masculine task. Mathematics was associated with the gods, and with transcendence from the material world; women, by their nature, were supposedly rooted in this latter, baser realm. — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share Image
When you're in a room with twenty people who've all got the True Theory of the universe, it's difficult to know what to do.… — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share Image
Wave particle duality is a core feature of our world. Or rather, we should say, it is a core feature of our mathematical descriptions of our world. But what is critical to note here is that, however ambiguous our images, the universe itself remains whole and is manifestly not fracturing into schizophrenic shards. It is this tantalizing wholeness and the… — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share
Computers are very powerful tools, but in the simulated world of the computer, everything has to be calculated. — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share Image
Nature doesn't feel compelled to stick to a mathematically precise algorithm; in fact, nature probably can't stick to an algorithm. — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share Image
If I could do anything in my life and be remembered for anything, I would like to be remembered for helping the world see… — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share Image
One way to think about a pure hyperbolic surface is that it's the geometric opposite of a sphere. If you look at a sphere, the curvature is the same everywhere, as opposed to, say, an egg, which clearly does not curve the same everywhere. This is what makes spheres geometrically important. Mathematically speaking, a sphere has positive curvature and a… — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share
Female physicists, astronomers and mathematicians are up against more than 2,000 years of convention that has long portrayed these fields as inherently male. — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share Image
This is what I call the "cosmological problem" of science. Science has the instrumental function that has given us computers and so on, but… — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share Image
When I was a physics major in the late 1970s, my very few fellow female students and I had high hopes that women would… — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share Image
Simple DNA gradually morphed and evolved, so that you had the coming into being of ever more complex and diverse creatures, until one day… — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share Image
I have an abiding interest in how ordinary people produce knowledge, and what it means for individuals to know the world. I thought I'd… — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share Image
As a child it was clear to me that in some sense math was in the world around us. I became fascinated by what… — Margaret Wertheim Copy Share Image
