The State of the Superposition

Right then! I've been thinking about where I want this blog to go, so I want to update you all on what might be coming your way in the near future.

Up until now I've been writing about science, degrees, PhDs and some science related things. But, now I'm heading into thesis writing territory I'm going to change the subject matter ever so slightly. The reason for this is pretty simple. I'm going to be writing about science (my science in fact) for long periods of my day and the idea of writing even more about just science or my PhD doesn't feel very fun. I'll probably do an odd PhD related posts about writing a thesis or something else, but don't expect as much university related content. Instead my idea is that Superposition of Sciences will branch out and look at science in the media, from woks of fiction to documentaries to news stories. Why? Well, it's something that I find particularly interesting at the moment and I have opinions on it; so hopefully I'll have something to say and we'll have new a superposition (overlap) of science and the media, instead of just different sciences.

Thanks for reading so far and I hope you still will as I move into this new area of discussion.

Later this week you can expect to see a new link round up and a fresh post will appear next week.

On Women in Science on the Box - The Grimm, The Bold and the Bang (Part 3)

Here we are at part 3 in this series of posts talking about representations of women in STEM on TV and film. I kicked things off by talking about Grimm and the good things it does (find that here) and continued by looking at Star Trek, Hannibal and others (that's here!), with some thoughts about what works and what doesn't in character representation.
Firstly, disclaimer time:

I have not done an extensive survey on all women in STEM in TV shows and films now and in the past. This is purely an observation from my perspective on some of the media I've consumed recently and also, a musing on what makes female characters in a STEM professions or related roles good or bad.

Now finally, we're going to talk about the biggest current program about (in a loose sense) scientists doing science things in science ways, The Big Bang Theory. I regularly watch Big Bang, after all if there's nothing else on the box E4 is a stalwart for showing How I Met Your Big Bang all day (How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory). But, the more I've thought about writing this post the more I've ummed and ahhed over what to say.  I do like Big Bang, but there are things in it that I'm not a fan of and I don't think it's just about how the show presents women in STEM, the men are not presented in a much better light by any stretch. However, there are certain things that are particularly grating that tend to revolve around the female characters. Now, I really like Amy and Bernadette, they are practicing scientists with PhDs in Neuroscience and Microbiology respectively, they have developed into key characters, but I feel that the show gives them a raw deal more often than the other characters. There are also other women in STEM in The Big Bang Theory, but I think Bernadette and Amy as main characters are where some of the issues with Big Bang really come to light.

The first thing that really gets my back up is the constant "Oh no, women aren't nerdy!" thing which is repeated throughout the show. From the ever present jokes about there being no girls in the comic book store to comments of, "Girls don't game." and "Girls don't play dungeons and dragons". The most annoying thing is whenever the girls (particularly Bernadette) get involved with this sort of stuff, they like it! But, the next to the episode we're right back to "Girls don't". One specific example that annoyed me recently was when Sheldon does a straw pole about which console to buy. Obviously Bernadette goes for the Wii because 'it's for casual gamers', but instead of subverting this by her listing all the great things about the Wii (Mario Kart, Zelda, Smash, Super Mario, I could go on) its just played for the "Oh no she doesn't know anything" laugh, which can only help perpetuate the 'Fake Geek Girl' myth which is very annoying.

My second gripe is the way Bernadette and Amy are presented in terms of dress and interests against Penny and the smart vs pretty dynamic the show seems to go for. In the show it always seems that women are presented as beautiful and sexy OR smart, but not both. Which is exceptionally silly seen as all the actors are Hollywood pretty. The show goes out of the way to make Amy and Bernadette less attractive than Penny, which gives the strong message that you can't be both pretty and successful in STEM. Moreover, they are characterised as odd and out of place with Penny, which isn't a) realistic or b) a great image for women in STEM. Conversely you can say the same about the Leonard, Sheldon, Raj and Howard, as they are presented as other to Penny and normal people. However, the kicker is that they seem to view Amy and Bernadette in the same way as the viewer, as 'other' and lesser than Penny, which lowers their status compared to the male leads.

What about the flip side to my niggles with Big Bang Theory? Well the show does now have female scientists as main characters and not just Penny, which is a positive. They have a lot of screen time, they do talk about their work and they are presented as being extremely good at what they do to a level equal with Raj Howard and Leonard. And, on that theme, none of the characters in STEM careers are presented a way that would make them good role models. Or are they? After all, Leonard gets the girl and Howard goes to space, so aren't those positives that come of their behaviour? Having said that, if the representations of STEM careers aren't great and the women get the worse end of the deal, does that mean much? It's a comedy after all and the jokes are all centred around nerd culture, so should I expect it to have positive messages about women in STEM, or people in STEM at all? Its not like I watch Brooklyn Nine Nine (the best new comedy since Not Going Out btw) and say, "Oh! That's what police officers do!", because well, they don't. However, I think some of the differences between Nine Nine and Big Bang are that Nine Nine seems to mainly joke about police show clichés, it has a diverse cast and really awesome characters on all sides (I point you here for more detail). I also get the feeling that the writing staff respect the characters, a weird thing to say, but I think it's true. Comparatively, I'd say the Big Bang writing staff have a lower level of respect for their characters, which then bleeds through into audience perception.

After all that, why do I watch The Big Bang Theory? Well, it's one of the only show's that touches on nerd culture (especially since The Fades got cancelled) and it's one of the few places that shows nerd culture without having people stuck in their parents' basements. It's amusing, it's easy viewing and it can be really good at times. Also, I do like a lot of the characters; Bernadette is brilliant and I hope one day she'll properly take Sheldon down, Amy is excellent and I want her to realise she's better than her relationship Sheldon and that she deserves more or I'd like to see a lot more development Amy and Sheldon's their relationship at a much greater pace.

The Big Bang Theory is a key show to think about as it has a lot of influence. In the US, last season was watched by an average of 19.96 million people! It's one of the only shows out right now to focus on science as a career and that has the potential to make it very influential. Do I think it's driving people. particularly women, away from science? Probably not. But, I do think it adds to the narrative of "things for boys" and "things for girls" being separate and the air of science not being for everyone. Yes. However, its great to know that although The Big Bang Theory might not be the most inspirational show ever, there are some really good examples of women (and men!) in science out and about on the TV now. This hasn't been an exhaustive look, but I think I've found that there are great characters working in STEM out there on the box and although there's not been a huge shift from past to present, general writing quality might just make the characters of today slightly better than those of the past. Let's hope the positive momentum continues and maybe, just maybe, the next generation of scientists might be inspired by things like Grimm, Bones and the odd re-run of Star Trek.

Did any of the character's or TV shows make you interested in science? What do you think about The Big Bang Theory? Let me know in the comments!

On Women in Science on the Box - The Grimm, The Bold and The Bang (Part 2)

Last time I began this mini series talking about the representations of women in STEM in TV and film by talking about the positives I came across in Grimm (if you haven't already, you can read that here).
As with my first post the following disclaimer still applies:
I have not done an extensive survey on all women in STEM in TV shows and films now and in the past. This is purely an observation from my perspective on some of the media I've consumed recently and also, a musing on what makes female characters in a STEM professions or related roles good or bad.

So, let's begin to look backwards and sideways to find where the representations of women in STEM have come from and whether there is a sense of progression or regression.

I would be extremely remiss to look at this topic and not talk about a certain Star Trek series. Voyager had its television début in 1995 and it did something no other Trek incarnation had done before. It had a female captain. Not only did the USS Voyager have a female captain, it also had a female chief of engineering in B'Ellana Torres and what career path did Janeway take to get to the captain's chair? She was a Science Officer! And that's not all, when Seven of Nine is introduced she becomes the Astrometric's Officer. In short Voyager is a ship full of women in STEM, who are treated (for the most part) in the same way as the rest of the crew.  A much better look at the wonder of Voyager than I've written can be found here, it's a great read and made me feel oh so nostalgic for the days of Trek watching on BBC2 (except when it was swapped for live snooker). It wouldn't be fair to mention Star Trek's women in STEM without commenting on Deep Space Nine (where the protagonists boldly sat where people have sat before) which had Jadzia Dax, as scientific officer. However, I unfortunately don't really have much recollection of what sciencing Dax actually did... But, Voyager didn't appear in a vacuum. In 1997 Stargate SG1 began, featuring Captain Samantha Carter, astrophysicist and officer in the US Air Force. Unfortunately, she is SG-1's only female main character, which is a shame, but I suppose they at least made Sam a good one. This grouping of characters from sci-fi are, in my opinion, a positive set of representations. Ok, they may not be doing modern day science, but they show women in STEM at the forefront of knowledge and expertise on a new frontier. Not to mention all these TV shows aired in the nineties, which, when we're still talking about perceptions of what a scientist is, is both good and bad. On the one hand we have had a set of really positive images, but its looks like they haven't spread into the public conciousness, an interesting thing in itself. 

A genre where women in science are represented very well, is Crime Drama. From Silent Witness to Bones to Hannibal, both in the past and present there's a lot of female characters working in forensic sciences. Long running Silent Witness has featured a female pathologist in every season, beginning with Prof. Sam Ryan and continuing until today with Dr Nikki Alexander. I've only seen later seasons of Silent Witness, so I can only comment on Nikki, but she always came across to me as a touch on the lifeless side. She has work, but what else is there? On a similar theme we also have Bones, which has Dr Temperance 'Bones' Brennan as a forensic anthropologist. On the one had, Bones is the lead character, but she also falls victim to the classic tropes of social awkwardness and lack of empathy. However, in contrast the series also features Dr Cam Sayoran as the head of bone's research institute and fellow pathologist. For my money Cam is a must more positive example of women in STEM as she is feels more believable and real, but she I don't think she gets enough screen time to compete with the rest of the cast. Next, let's think about Hannibal, the dark crime thriller which features Prof. Alana Bloom, a professor of psychology and Special Agent Beverly Katz, a forensic investigator. Beverley is the focus of the three strong FBI forensics team followed in  Hannibal, and it's great to see that she is treated in the same way as her male counterparts. The flip side is that she doesn't get a lot of personal development compared to Alana, but from the screen time she does get, we see Beverley as brave, capable, clever and not afraid to take risks. Even though Nikki in Silent Witness and Cam in Bones have more screen time than Beverley, I'd struggle to write a list like that about them. Alana Bloom is one of my favourite characters in Hannibal full stop, but she's not very science-y. She's an academic but we don't really see her doing research, apart from occasionally when she interacts with Will Graham so its hard to really see her as a scientist, which I think is highly unfortunate, considering how well other aspects of her character are handled.

I think the main thing that has crossed my mind while writing this post is that its important to think about how everyone in STEM roles is represented, not just women. So far I've looked at a lot of good examples of female representation, where many of my examples also have some great male characters in STEM careers too, with Bones, Stargate, Hannibal and Silent Witness being pretty good in these respects. However, I think where things fall down, is where characters are scientist first, human second. That's something that particularly comes to my mind some of the Crime Drama's I've talked about; they are full of character's defined by their jobs, which isn't very reflective of real life. I think it's also becoming clear that the best characters, like those in Grimm, are those who have more to them then their work. On the whole I think there is a growing trend towards writing scientists with lives, but I also don't think it would be fair to say that women in STEM career's were 100% poorly represented in the past especially when we have the greatness of Voyager to look back on. However, I think there is room for improvement in how all STEM professionals are represented in the media and it's that shift away from mindless stereotyping for major and minor characters which might just be on the rise.

Next time we get to the big one. We're looking at The Big Bang Theory... This could get very interesting.

New Year, New Things.

So I er, didn't quite manage to get a post up last week. In short it's to do with a myriad of job hunting factors and a busy Christmas, but yeah, no post. I apologise and hope to get on track from now onwards!

2015 is here and everywhere has look backs at 2014 or previews of what's to come in 2015. I don't normal do the whole look forward/backward thing myself, but it feels like 2015 is going to be a particularly big year for me. If nothing else it will be a year of change, so here's some of what will be coming up for me in the next 12 months.

An End

2015 is the year I will complete my PhD. Hopefully. I finish my day to day work for sure this year (mainly as I stop getting paid), and I want to get my thesis in, but that could drag on for a bit longer. However, I'm aiming for a 2015 hand in for the sake of my sanity.

A Beginning

As my PhD is ending, I'll be starting a new career. I don't know what that will be yet, but hopefully there will be a job for me to start in September! *Crosses all fingers and toes very tightly*

Something Exciting

As well as the big things I've got quite a lot of smaller, but important events happening from things I'm going to see to things I'm in. I've got two performances which I'm a part of to prep for in the coming year, from the imminent Made in Yorkshire in February to A Midsummer Night's Dream in the summer. I'm also already booked to go see the Kaiser Chiefs in a few weeks at the Leeds Arena, where I'll also be seeing The Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular in May (Note to self remember tissues in case of Angels Take Manhattan or Regenerations). To add to that I'll once again be trotting off to various conventions this summer including Nine Worlds for definite and likely either MCM Expo or London Film and Comic Con.

Things to Watch, Read, Play and Listen
There are so many things that I'm looking forward to watching/playing/reading/listening to this year. I'm already looking forward to more Doctor Who and, of course, The Force Awakens next winter. But, in the near future I want to sink my teeth into the Wheel of Time audio-books, read Catherine Webb's  new and newish books under her new, new  pen name Clare North and watch Agent Carter, the new Marvel TV show following Peggy Carter after the events of Captain America. Sprinkle in some Dungeons and Dragons and a good deal of time playing the new Super Smash Brothers and that's my year in no way wrapped up. Come on! I also need to catch up with Hannibal and the Lightbringer books and Clariel and Tokyo Ghoul and Red Seas Under Red Skys... Oh! AND.... 

Nine Worlds Geekfest 2014

I'm now back at work after an awesome weekend (and following week off) at Nine Worlds geekfest. What is a geekfest? You may ask. We'll you're about to find out. A geekfest is a celebration (unsurprisingly) of all things geeky, from Doctor Who to SF and Fantasy books, from Steampunk and Science. It's actually quite hard to explain the scope of the event from the number of different tracks to the different activities you could do. Listen to an academic presentation, go see a panel of great authors be quizzed on genre fiction, get your books signed by said authors, learn to (I kid you not) water dance from the First Sword of Bravos (What do we say to people who don't get that reference? Not today), see a science comedy show, take part in a writing workshop, join in a LARP, dance away the night to a Queen tribute band and so, so much more. Whatever your choice of geekery (except boardgames this year *sad face*) Nine Worlds probably had something there for you. They even had a program item to do with (bubble) football.

As this post waxes lyrical, follow the link below to read more about my adventures.

The Not So Calm Before the Storm

It's Bank Holiday Monday and thanks to the quirks of universities I get Bank Holiday Tuesday off tomorrow! So it's time for a breather and to take stock before work creeps in once more. However, I must say I will be using my day off extra time to practice, practice and practice some more my first conference presentation (which I find really hard to do in work) and my lines a fast approaching performance of the Accrington Pals. Overall, it's a bit of a weird time for me at the moment as it feels like I'm waiting for all sorts of things to happen. I'll be leaving for a conference in 2 weeks time, then in the coming months I've got a 2 week industrial placement to organise, end of year paper work to do, another conference to attend and, on a more fun note, a play to get ready for. However, beyond all that there's something else on the horizon, my Final Year. 

It's strange, you'd think that this far in to a PhD Final Year wouldn't seem like such a big deal and to be honest I would rather like to leave and get a real job in a year and a bit's time. But that's precisely the difficultly! I quite like it being a year and a bit away! It's quite scary that very soon I won't have the cosy 'year and a...' in front of the measurement of the time I have left. In Final Year I'll need to write a thesis, finish up with all my experiments (which will involve starting some new ones) and apply for jobs; so it feels like the time I'm in now is the calm, or rather not so calm before the storm. A time to present my work, write and re-work a paper or two and have everything ready to help me gather momentum to burst into the Final Year with a great start.

Don’t get me wrong there are some awesome things to look forward in Final Year. Firstly, being able to have a beautifully bound thesis with my name on it (I’m so going hardback), although I have to write what goes inside it first. Also, I’ll be less than a year from hopefully having a job with employment rights and a pension (whooooo!), but on the down side I have to actually get offered a job in the first place. And that’s when I get stuck, I’m very much looking forward to the after the PhD, but the journey to get there could be very.... interesting.

What I need are goals, little things I can give myself a gold star for completing. That way I should hopefully properly manage my time, keep an eye on what I need to do and be able to focus on what I have accomplished rather than what is left to do. So my plan is to have set up lots and lots to-do lists in Excel. In the past I could never really get on with to-do lists reaching beyond what I wanted to do each day, but now that I have more to think about than experiments I need to have a clear handle on what I need to be doing and when it needs to be done by so it seems like to-do lists are the way to go. The good news is that I've found that, for some reason, using colour coded deadlines in an Excel spreadsheet helps me cut through the clutter and clearly see what I need to be doing and when I need to be doing it by (and setting them up is the perfect form of procrastination).

So as time ticks on, hopefully I'll be able to stay focused by being a to-do list queen. But, if you have any good organisational techniques and useful programs you use please share them in the comments! I'm sure that I and everyone else reading would find it very helpful (and a good excuse to procrastinate some more). 

How did I find physics?

I suppose my story starts with the most cliché influence a physicist could have. Star Trek. One afternoon my parents sat me down to watch the Voyage Home filled with whales and nuclear wessles and that was it. That evening I started watching Voyager (when it was back on BBC2 ) and thus began the three appointments a week I had with the crews of the Enterprise, Deep Space 9 and Voyager. Needless to say, I began to really think about whether there was life on other planets, what could nanotechnology do and what was real space travel like. Luckily my parents were more than happy to facilitate my interest in science and trips to the science museum, nuclear power stations, nuclear bunkers I suppose in many ways my continued fascination with space and all things nuclear spurred me on to do triple science at GCSE so I could (hopefully) study science in a bit more detail. 

However, when I started my GCSEs I'd had another 2 influences actting on my life; the internet and the Lord of the Rings. The combined effect was that I thought I wanted to go into computer science and specialise in computer generated graphics for games and films which was further fuelled by the contrast between my not so good physics teacher (I did a lot of sticking the syllabus into my book over those two years) and my fantastic IT teacher. However, things began to change when I saw a documentary on BBC4, Dr. Michio Kaku's Time (currently available on youtube here). Time was a revelation, it introduced me to the ideas of general relativity and told me that time travel and worm hole's might just be possible within the theoretical limits of the universe. What more would you need to hear to inspire a Whovian or Trekkie to give physics another look? Soon after Time aired I prepared for my end of year 10 exams, and suddenly realised from reading the text book the material I had been taught in physics classes was actually interesting. It described how things moved and how we powered our homes along with so many other things. And I wanted to explore and find out more. I wanted to know how nuclear fission worked, I wanted to know why cells keep us alive, I wanted to know more about the atom. So it became obvious, I needed to do A-level physics. Don't get me wrong I still loved IT and originally thought I'd do A-level computing too, but in the end I was guided into further maths with promises of improved chances of entry to Computer Science at university.

I'm happy to say it was the right choice. At college I had 2 fantastic physics teachers who not only made sure we learnt the material, but also gave us the feeling of how wonderful it was to use physics to describe the world. But I still had my eye on what I wanted to do after university. Should I do engineering, should I do computer science or should I do physics? The more I read, the more I realised that doing physics wouldn't box me in like computer science or engineering might, it would leave my options open. I don't know exactly when I decided, but I came to the conclusion that physics was the subject for me. It was during my UCAS prep that I really began to fall in love with physics. I read 'In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat' by John Gribbin, I attempted to read 'The Road to Reality' by Roger Penrose which was mostly over my head but introduced me to some really cool concepts in cosmology and I devoured QED by Richard Feynman. These books showed me that you didn't have to look into deep space to find the extraordinary; the extraordinary was around us every day. We live in a crazy quantum world filled with beauty and contradiction and I needed to understand it. 

The rest, as they say, is history. I applied to universities with strong focusses on quantum technologies and nanotechnology, got my degree and as I write this, I'm sitting at a desk in the experimental quantum information office. It was a long road to get here, but I found my way in time. I suppose it’s true that inspiration can be found in the strangest of places, so always keep an open mind and you never know where you may end up!

Odds and Ends

Unfortunately, it’s a short-ish post from me today as things have been a bit on the hectic side. I don't have a big Easter holiday on the horizon so it's PhD business as usual for me! At the moment I have lots of different things that are demanding my time and attention which, while important, don’t do much to advance my project on the surface.

Firstly, conference season is on the way, so abstracts (short summaries of your work) need to be written, posters produced, presentations practised and travel arrangements made. I've been lucky enough to have an abstract accepted as a talk at a conference this summer and while I'm not writing my presentation for it just yet, it’s in Italy, so  there are lots of things for me to sort out before I even get started. I need to register for the conference before the price goes up (check), make sure I have my travel documents in order (nope), book flights (nope), transfers (nope) and a hotel (nope). All easier said than done when you have to claim everything back on expenses.

I'm also preparing a presentation to give to my physics research group in Leeds. I'm actually quite nervous about it as I've not had to present to a physics audience before. So, that means I'm well practised in skimming over the detail of the mechanisms that under pin my work and I know that this is what the other physicists will be really interested in. Even if it doesn't work out it’ll give me a trail run for the future, but if possible I’d much rather not crash and burn.

As much as I try not to, part of my brain is tied up playing the waiting game, something which I'm not very good at. I've currently got a paper on submission to a journal and I've submitted an abstract for another conference. When it comes to the abstract I should know before the end of the month if it has been accepted, but it could be a while before I hear anything back from the journal. Apparently 3 months is considered a quick turn around and I'm just reaching a month in, so I've got a while to wait yet. The worst thing about it is the uncertainty, there's no standard information system for journals so they can tell you as much or as little as they want about how your submission is progressing. I know I should just let it go and not think about it, but it’s really hard not to look for news when I'm checking my e-mail on a morning.

Finally, alongside these 'side' bits there is some ‘real’ work for me to do. I'm currently coding a program to help me process data more quickly than my current manual methods. I'm really enjoying this bit as I'm learning to use python and although it can be frustrating at times I really like coding and I get a real sense of achievement out of it.

It seems that sometimes in a PhD you have to be a bit of a juggler, keeping lots of balls in the air whilst on a unicycle (at least that's what it feels like). On the upside, it looks like I should be able to confidently say I have ‘good time management’ and ‘multitasking skills’ on my CV at the end of it all!

My advice on how to keep everything going? Don't think about it too much, make to-do lists for each week (I find I don't stick to daily ones) and ask for help sooner rather than later!

Hello World!

Hello and welcome to A Superposition of Sciences, my brand new and shiny blog about my PhD, some of the fun things I do outside of my work and my opinions on various things that catch my eye in science. I started this blog as I was lucky enough to be selected to be a bloggie for the BLOGden program from the Ogden Trust. So I finally have a kick start and an incentive to put pen to virtual paper and throw some of my thoughts out into cyber space. I'm hoping that by doing this I might be able to share some inside information on what it's like doing a PhD and cast some light on a few of the many, many doors that studying physics can open for you.

At the moment my plan is to blog properly every fortnight. That may fluctuate a little bit depending on my workload, but I'll do my best to keep on track. Additionally, on some of the off weeks I'll try and put together a few posts of interesting links that have caught my eye which I think are worth a look.

So before I start, a little bit about me. Although I like to call myself a physicist, I'm doing research in the field of tissue engineering. My tiny patch of the huge mass of stuff that makes up the field is non-destructive online monitoring. That basically means I'm trying to find ways to observe and what cells do when they grow without killing them. I mainly focus on bone cells as they should produce lots of bone mineral for me to study. I'm not going to go into too much detail now, so if you want to know more about what I do keep reading! The other thing you should know is I'm a card carrying geek. I game (both video and tabletop), watch tonnes of box sets, read as much as possible and spend lots of time chatting to my friends about what's going on in the fictional universes that I love. Due to the amount of geekery I engage in, it might creep into my blog posts every now and again. You have been warned!

With that out of the way, I humbly request that you sit back, relax and (hopefully) enjoy joining me on my on bumpy journey through the mystical, confusing and occasionally awesome world of the PhD.