Tom Jonard on Intuition in Science

Historically the women I can think of in Astronomy have done the hard analytical work.  Henrietta Leavitt of Harvard College who did the seminal study of Cepheid variables in the Magellanic Clouds would be an example.  This involved the analysis of the position, brightness variations and relative magnitudes of 10s of thousands of stars over 4 years to find 16 variables.  The result was a key part of the distance scale for the universe.  While this scale has been recalibrated over time the facts involved in this analysis are not in dispute.

Einstein on the other hand was an intuitive thinker who as much as said that if the facts did not match his theory, too bad for the facts.

The dichotomy I see at work here is one between observation and theory, between Astronomy and Cosmology.  Astronomy is really the realm of the analytical.  To find out about the stars we photograph them and take their spectra.  Astronomers do this over and over again for decades.

Positional astronomy is really analytical and interesting if you are so inclined.  To determine the position of a star expose a field containing the star on a photographic plate.    After exposing the field you must measure the position of that star and dozens of other reference stars on the plate with a microscope mounted on a stage that moves over the whole plate and whose position can be read with micrometer scales.  Once that is done the results must be mathematically adjusted for the fact that the plate is flat but the sky is (apparently) curved.  Then more math to adjust for the differing refraction of the atmosphere at different altitudes.  And then you do it again and again day after day for years.

Theorists like Einstein on the other hand sit in offices and think "What would happen to a free-falling body" and come up with theories about how the universe works.  They are truly the intuitive ones.  Einstein proposed the Cosmological Constant -- a term which describes a force that opposes gravity -- because the universe did not seem to be collapsing which it should do if any theory of gravity without it is correct.  Later on the astronomers saw that the universe was expanding.  Drat!  Einstein thought this was his biggest mistake.  Truth is he did not know if the universe was expanding, contracting or whatever.  And as long as he ignored these facts or observations his theory was pure.  The mistake was trying to adjust the theory to what we thought were the facts. Oddly enough recent observation suggests the expansion of the universe is accelerating -- there may be something like a Cosmological Constant after all.

I suppose my only point here is that women have no corner on intuition and that intuitive thinking plays a crucial role in the advancement of the theoretical side of things in general.  The reasons there have been few women in astronomy in the past probably has more to do with male dominance and chauvinism.  In short this is just like the rest of society as a whole, more or less.  I hope things are getting better, but I leave it to women tell me if it is.