4.0370 Handedness/Gender; Heisenberg (2/50)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 7 Aug 90 20:55:39 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0370. Tuesday, 7 Aug 1990.
(1) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 90 12:01:53 BST (34 lines)
From: ZLSIISA@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk
Subject: Handedness, gender, etc
(2) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 90 15:11:01 EDT (16 lines)
From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Subject: Re: 4.0366 Responses: ... Heisenberg ...
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 90 12:01:53 BST
From: ZLSIISA@cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk
Subject: Handedness, gender, etc
Oh dear, I'd hoped not to get involved - this could run and run - but as
another left-handed female in computing support, I'll have to respond to
Mary Dee Harris. I have been either a programmer or a computing advisor
for nearly 20 years, but in public libraries I get mistaken for a member
of staff, and a librarian is probably what I would have become had I not
discovered computers first. My interests have always been literature,
performing arts and History, and although I can do sums quite well, I
don't understand mathematics at all. Moreover, when I studied as a part-
time student for an MA in early mediaeval history, 6 of my twelve fellow-
students were also left-handed, making us the majority. As far as I can
remember, their occupations were: (males) computer engineer, solicitor,
history/geography teacher; (females) history teacher, history/religious
studies teacher, animal rights worker. The two lecturers who taught us
the history, as opposed to the documents work, (the two did overlap
considerably!) were also left-handers; they were qualified in both
history and archaeology. We knew we were odd: only the odd would
assemble at the end of the working day to consider the more esoteric
aspects of 850-1350AD. Were we even odder than we thought?
Sarah Davnall, Humanities Liaison, University of Manchester, United
Kingdom. Davnall@uk.ac.manchester
P.S. I forgot to say that my memory for names seems to be much the same
as reported by others, though it is better if I take the trouble to
write the name down. Actually, my memory for everything is much the
same. I would put it down to middle age, except that my much younger
(right-handed) sister has the same problem. At a mock-interview once,
she was asked what she considered to be her weaknesses. "I have three."
she started brightly,"I have a bad memory, I am untidy, and .. er, I
can't remember the other one.".
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------30----
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 90 15:11:01 EDT
From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Subject: Re: 4.0366 Responses: Image Databases; Heisenberg (2/30)
Germaine Warkentin's anecdote about her dinner conversation with the
physicist who saved most of his terrain from Heisenberg's uncertainty
reminded me of the first time I heard Heisenberg referred to in a
literary context. It was in 1963 or so and I was sitting in on a senior
seminar given by R.P.Blackmur and devoted to readings of Dante,
Montaigne, and Pascal. RPB invoked H's uncertainty principle with
reference to Montaigne, claiming that M. (intrinsically) was saying that
"if you know where you are, you don't know where you are going; if you
know where you are going, you don't know where you are." That
pre-post-structuralist construction probably offered an early
opportunity to be skeptical about almost all such borrowings, but in
those calm days at Princeton it only seemed amusing.