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Conwell is explaining her problems with Marcel Schein, while a grad student at Chicago. Conwell: "...When I came back from my Ph.D. orals, he was on the committee. Zachariesen, who I had taken mechanics with at Chicago, and Chandra, and Allison, the nuclear physicist-it was a very distinguished committee. Mulliken for atomic physics. I think we had one more. And Schein had a couple of-I mean everybody had a chance to ask me a couple of questions, and Schein asked me a question and I answered. And he thereupon enlarged on my answer, or maybe said I hadn't said it all, and spent around five minutes at this Ph.D. oral, explaining what he thought I should have given as the answer. And at the end of that, I said I thought that my answer was equivalent to what he had said. He let it go at that. I think he was really anti-woman, or he would not have done that. But he did not cover himself with glory in that exchange. It's a moment that I have treasured."

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Conwell is explaining her problems with Marcel Schein, while a grad student at Chicago. Conwell: "...When I came back from my Ph.D. orals, he was on the committee. Zachariesen, who I had taken mechanics with at Chicago, and Chandra, and Allison, the nuclear physicist-it was a very distinguished committee. Mulliken for atomic physics. I think we had one more. And Schein had a couple of-I mean everybody had a chance to ask me a couple of questions, and Schein asked me a question and I answered. And he thereupon enlarged on my answer, or maybe said I hadn't said it all, and spent around five minutes at this Ph.D. oral, explaining what he thought I should have given as the answer. And at the end of that, I said I thought that my answer was equivalent to what he had said. He let it go at that. I think he was really anti-woman, or he would not have done that. But he did not cover himself with glory in that exchange. It's a moment that I have treasured."
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Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 23-May-2023 14:48:53 UTC Robert McNees
in reply to

This bit where Conwell recalls calmly demolishing Marcel Schein at her Ph.D. oral exam is truly superb:
“But he did not cover himself with glory in that exchange. It’s a moment that I have treasured.”
If I could lift one saying out of the mid-20th century and deposit it in the modern vernacular, this is it.

In conversation Tuesday, 23-May-2023 14:48:53 UTC from mastodon.social permalink