Thursday 31 January 2013

Rajya Sabha

Name of StateNo. of Seats
Andhra Pradesh18
Arunachal Pradesh1
Assam7
Bihar16
Chhattisgarh5
Goa1
Gujarat11
Haryana5
Himachal Pradesh3
Jammu & Kashmir4
Jharkhand6
Karnataka12
Kerala9
Madhya Pradesh11
Maharashtra19
Manipur1
Meghalaya1
Mizoram1
Nagaland1
National Capital Territory (Delhi)3
Nominated12
Orissa10
Pondicherry1
Punjab7
Rajasthan10
Sikkim1
Tamil Nadu18
Tripura1
Uttar Pradesh31
Uttarakhand3
West Bengal16

Wednesday 23 January 2013

mathematics and nobel

 "The universe cannot be read until we have learned the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. Without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth."
           The same was told by Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564-January 8, 1642was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. A German mathematician and physical scientist who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy(a branch of earth sciences) named as Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss(April 30, 1777-February 23, 1855) referred to Mathematics as 'the Queen of all the sciences'. No wonder, as there is hardly any branch of knowledge devoid of mathematics. From a cattle census to satellite-imaging technology, everything flourishes in the courtyard of mathematics. This omnipresence of mathematics was not alien to the ancient people who lived on the river banks of the Saraswati and the Sindhu. They expressed it in beautiful language. The Vedangajyotisam states:

Yatha sikha mayuranam 
Naganam manayo yatha, 
Tadvad vedangasastranam 
Ganitam murdhani sthitam.

   "Like the crowning crest of a peacock and the shining gem in the cobra‚s hood, mathematics is the supreme Vedanga Sastra" There are six Vedanga Sastras viz. Siksa (phonetics), Niruktam (etymology), Vyakaranam (grammar), Chandas (prosody), Kalpam (ritualistics) and Ganitam (mathematics).
Ironically there is no Nobel prize in Mathematics.

     Nobel prizes were created by the will of Sir Alfred Bernhard Nobel(21 october 1833-10 december 1896), a notable Swedish chemist, industrialist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer.  On November 27, 1895, he signed his last will in Paris. He was the inventor of dynamite. In 1863 Swedish industrialist he invented the Nobel patent detonator used with dynamite and nitroglycerin. Nitroglycerin is an explosive compound formed by the combination of glycerol and nitric and sulfuric acids.  He is credited with 355 patents. One of the most common -and unfounded- reasons as to why Nobel decided against a Nobel prize in math is that a woman he proposed to/his wife/his mistress rejected him because of/cheated him with. A famous mathematician Magnus Gustaf (Gosta) Mittag-Leffler (16 March 1846 – 7 July 1927) is often claimed to be the guilty party.There is no historical evidence to support the story.For one, Mr. Nobel was never married.There are more credible reasons as to why there is no Nobel prize in math. Chiefly among them is simply the fact he didn't care much for Mathematics, and that it was not considered a practical science from which humanity could benefit (a chief purpose for creating the Nobel Foundation). Further, at the time there existed already a well known Scandinavian prize for mathematicians. If Nobel knew about this prize he may have felt less compelled to add a competing prize for mathematicians in his will. As professor ordinarius in Stockholm, Mittag-Leffler began a 30-year career of vigorous mathematical activity. In 1882 he founded the Acta Mathematica, which a century later is still one of the world's leading mathematical journals. Through his influence in Stockholm he persuaded King Oscar II (last crowned swedish king from 1872 until his death and King of Norway from 1872 until 1905) to endow prize competitions and honor various distinguished mathematicians all over Europe. French mathematician Charles Hermite (December 24, 1822 – January 14, 1901), Joseph LouisFrancois Bertrand (March 11, 1822 – April 5, 1900), Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass ( 31 October 1815 – 19 February 1897) German mathematician  who is often cited as the "father of modern analysis", and Jules Henri Poincare (April 29, 1854-July 17, 1912) were among those honored by the King.
     Here are some relevant facts:
   Nobel never married, hence no ``wife''. Nobel's third and longest-lasting relationship was with Sofie Hess who was from Vienna, whom he met in 1876. She was a lower class store clerk who was quite handsome, but irresponsible. The liaison lasted for 18 years until she got pregnant by another man. The romance was a sad one for Nobel who always hoped like a “Pygmalion”. But she had nothing to do with any mathematician: the story of a jealous Nobel is simply a legend. Leffler was an important mathematician in Sweden in the late 19th-early 20th century. His mathematical contributions are connected chiefly with the theory of functions. He was born in Stockholm, the eldest son of the school principal John Olof Leffler (29 june 1813-16 july 1884) and Gustava Wilhelmina Mittag; he later added his mother's maiden name 'mittag' to his paternal surname. His sister was the writer Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler (October 1, 1849 - October 21, 1892). He matriculated at Uppsala University in 1865, completed his Ph.D. in 1872 and became docent at the university the same year. He was also curator (chairman) of the Stockholms nation (1872–1873). He next traveled to Paris, Göttingen and Berlin, studying under Weierstrass in the latter place. He then took up a position as professor of mathematics at the University of Helsinki 1877–1881 and then as the first professor of mathematics at the University College of Stockholm (the later Stockholm University); he was president of the college 1891-1892 and retired from his chair in 1911. Mittag-Leffler went into business and became a successful businessman in his own right, but an economic collapse in Europe wiped out his fortune in 1922.He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1883), the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters (1878, later honorary member), the Royal Swedish Society of Sciences in Uppsala, the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund (1906) and about 30 foreign learned societies, including the Royal Society of London (1896) and AcadĂ©mie des sciences in Paris. He held honorary doctorates from the University of Oxfordand several other universities.Mittag-Leffler was a convinced advocate of women's rights and was instrumental in making Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (January 15, 1850-February 10, 1891) a full professor of mathematics in Stockholm - the first woman anywhere in the world to hold that position. She was the first major Russian female mathematician, responsible for important original contributions to analysis, differential equations and mechanics. Mittag-Leffler founded the mathematical journal Acta Mathematica (1882), with the help of King Oscar's sponsorship, and partly paid for with the fortune of his wife Signe Lindfors (1861–1921), the daughter of major general Julius af. Lindfors (1831–1903),  who came from a very wealthy Finnish family. They had met while Mittag-Leffler was living in Helsinki and  the couple married in 1882. A legend that Alfred Nobel did not set up a prize in Mathematics because of a thwarted affair with Signe Lindfors is not supported by historical evidence.He collected a large mathematical library in his villa in the Stockholm suburb of Djursholm. The house and its contents was donated to the Academy of Sciences as the Mittag-Leffler Institute. However, it seems highly unlikely that he would have been a leading candidate for an early Nobel Prize in mathematics, had there been one - there were guys like Poincare and German mathematician David Hilbert (January 23, 1862 – February 14, 1943) around, after all.There is no evidence that Mittag-Leffler had much contact with Alfred Nobel (who resided in Paris during the latter part of his life), still less that there was animosity between them for whatever reason. A final speculation concerning the psychological element. Would Nobel, sitting down to draw up his testament, presumably in a mood of great benevolence to mankind, have allowed a mere personal grudge to distort his idealistic plans for the monument he would leave behind? Nobel, an inventor and industrialist, did not create a prize in mathematics simply because he was not particularly interested in mathematics or theoretical science. His will speaks of prizes for those ``inventions or discoveries'' of greatest practical benefit to mankind. Probably as a result of this language, the physics prize has been awarded for experimental work much more often than for advances in theory. However, the story of some rivalry over a woman is obviously much more amusing, and that's why it will probably continue to be repeated.
          Although there is no Nobel Prize for mathematics, many mathematicians win the Nobel Prize, often in fields that rely heavily on mathematics, such as physics and economics.
1950: Bertrand Russell (literature)

1954: Max Born, Walther Bothe (physics)
1972: Kenneth Arrow (economics)
1975: Leonid Kantorovich (economics)
1994: John Forbes Nash (economics)
2003: Clive W. J. Granger (economics)
2005: Robert J. Autmann, Thomas C. Schelling (economics)
2007: Roger Myerson and Eric Maskin (economist)
Several prizes are awarded periodically for outstanding mathematical achievement. These are Field's medal, Abel Prize, Rolf Nevanlinna Prize, and Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize & Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize etc.

Whatever it may be, Mathematics is the basic language of all natural sciences and all modern technology. 

Tuesday 22 January 2013

Quotations by Subject

Quotations by Subject

We currently have listings for the following 281 subjects, listed in alphabetical order. The number of quotations for each subject is listed in parentheses.
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  Y  
A
Ability (15) - Acting (20) - Actions (31) - Adversity (26) - Advertising (13) - Advice (26) - Age (80) -Agreement (13) - Ambition (22) - America (63) - Americans (23) - Anger (16) - Argument (21) - Art (79) -Atheism (25) - Attitude (9) - Authority (10) - Autumn (13)
B
Balance (7) - Banks (5) - Beauty (27) - Belief (23) - Birds (25) - Birth (8) - Body (34) - Books (78) -Boredom (19) - Brain (12) - Bureaucracy (7) - Business (23)
C
Camping (40) - Cats (10) - Celebrities (7) - Chance (9) - Change (23) - Character (39) - Charity (10) -Charm (6) - Children (51) - Christmas (7) - Civilization (16) - Cliches (3) - Committees (7) - Common Sense (9) -Communication (6) - Communism (4) - Community (7) - Competence (5) - Computers (31) - Conceit (10) -Confidence (21) - Congress (5) - Conscience (34) - Conservatives (14) - Conversation (25) - Courage (37) -Cowardice (18) - Creativity (21) - Crime (22) - Criticism (21) - Curiosity (5) - Cynicism (12)
D
Dance (7) - Death (68) - Decisions (22) - Defeat (10) - Democracy (24) - Design (8) - Desire (29) - Destiny (21) -Differences (6) - Dignity (15) - Discovery (17) - Dogs (29) - Doubt (16) - Dreams (37) - Drinking (22) -Drugs (8) - Duty (34)
E
Economics (11) - Education (56) - Emotions (7) - Enemies (33) - Energy (8) - Engineering (12) - England (7) -English (7) - Environment (7) - Equality (13) - Etiquette (14) - Evil (32) - Excellence (13) - Exercise (16) -Experience (15) - Experts (8) - Exploration (6)
F
Facts (16) - Failure (29) - Faith (18) - Fame (16) - Family (16) - Fashion (10) - Fate (19) - Fear (32) -Fishing (6) - Food (70) - Forgiveness (21) - Fortune (13) - Freedom (29) - Friendship (64)
G
Genius (14) - Giving (21) - Goals (15) - God (57) - Golf (8) - Gossip (18) - Government (34) - Gratitude (7) -Greatness (14) - Greed (5) - Grief (15) - Guilt (13)
H
Habits (6) - Happiness (61) - Hate (5) - Health (45) - Heroes (12) - History (16) - Hollywood (8) - Home (10) -Honesty (24) - Honor (12) - Hope (28) - Humility (17) - Humor (32) - Hunting (34)
I
Idealism (6) - Ideas (35) - Ignorance (41) - Imagination (17) - Immortality (11) - Inspiration (7) - Instinct (7) -Integrity (8) - Intelligence (20) - Internet (8) - Invention (7)
J
Jealousy (11) - Journalism (23) - Joy (27) - Justice (22)
K
Kindness (15) - Knowledge (31)
L
Language (30) - Laughter (26) - Laws (43) - Laziness (14) - Leadership (15) - Learning (14) - Legacy (4) -Liberals (10) - Lies (19) - Life (70) - Light (8) - Listening (17) - Loneliness (11) - Love (147) - Luck (8)
M
Mankind (20) - Marriage (56) - Mathematics (12) - Maturity (11) - Medicine (10) - Memory (26) - Men And Women (43) - Mercy (6) - Mistakes (42) - Money (72) - Morality (29) - Music (50)
N
Nature (57) - Necessity (3) - Nobility (10)
O
Opinions (30) - Opportunity (19) - Optimism (9)
P
Painting (13) - Parents (40) - Passion (26) - Patience (28) - Patriotism (26) - Peace (29) - Perfection (22) -Perseverance (9) - Persistence (5) - Pets (21) - Philosophy (16) - Photography (15) - Physics (8) - Plagiarism (5) -Planning (14) - Poetry (25) - Politicians (20) - Politics (37) - Possessions (13) - Poverty (10) - Power (32) -Praise (22) - Prayer (12) - Prejudice (17) - Pride (9) - Progress (13) - Promises (10) - Proverbs (87)
Q
Questioning (19) - Quotations (54)
R
Reality (18) - Reason (8) - Relaxation (29) - Religion (31) - Reputation (15) - Respect (10) - Responsibility (17) -Revenge (9) - Revolution (6) - Risk (19) - Rules (10)
S
Sanity (38) - Science (35) - Secrets (14) - Security (10) - Selfishness (5) - Service (7) - Sex (20) - Silence (44) -Simplicity (8) - Sincerity (6) - Sleep (25) - Snow (4) - Society (17) - Speech (47) - Sports (17) - Spring (14) -Statistics (7) - Stress (10) - Stupidity (21) - Success (72) - Suffering (22) - Summer (10) - Superstition (7)
T
Talent (16) - Taxes (7) - Teaching (11) - Technology (10) - Television (33) - Temptation (15) - The Future (23) -The Past (10) - The World (9) - Thoughts (40) - Time (52) - Tolerance (9) - Travel (12) - Trees (19) - Trust (28) -Truth (42)
U
V
Values (14) - Vices (12) - Victory (16) - Violence (10)
W
War (33) - Wealth (14) - Weather (8) - Winter (19) - Wisdom (28) - Wishes (11) - Work (68) - Worries (8) -Writing (117)
Y
Youth (37)

Sunday 20 January 2013

1st woman on the moon


The woman who was introducing her to the packed room was younger than she was but looked older. She was a prim-looking woman in a dark pantsuit. Wendy wore a powder blue business suit with a white blouse with ruffles about the wrists and neck. She was still physically fit, even now in her mid-forties, but the crow's feet about her eyes and the gray starting to intrude in her auburn hair belied any suggestion of youth.
"We at Women in Lunar Geology would like to welcome a woman who needs no real introduction," the woman introducing her said. "But I'll try anyway. Dr. Wendy Jacobson was hired by NASA in 1968 right out of college as a lunar geologist, where she helped support the missions of Apollo 11 and Apollo 12. Then, in November of 1969, when then-President Nixon announced the extension of the Apollo program, she did something that no woman had ever thought to do before. She applied for a selection in the next class of astronauts. Then she accomplished something else that no woman had ever done before. She was selected in that class. In December of 1975, Dr. Jacobson flew on the flight of Apollo 23 and became not only the first woman to walk on the Moon, but one of the first people to explore the lunar south pole. Her mission, as we all remember, took an unexpected turn when the ascent engine of the lunar taxi failed to fire, trapping her and her crewmate, Colonel Raymond McPherson, on the lunar surface. The rescue mission that saved her and Colonel McPherson's lives is an epic that will be remembered so long as humans explore the high frontier of space. Subsequently, Dr. Jacobson has done four six-month tours of the Port Apollo lunar base.
"To say that Dr. Jacobson has been a trailblazer for women in the sciences and in aerospace would be an understatement. But without further ado, I give you Dr. Wendy Jacobson."
The room roared with applause as Wendy walked over to take the podium.
The talk she gave was, with some additions and changes, the same one she had been giving ever since she had returned from the Moon for the first time. She showed slides from her old days as an Apollo astronaut, some of them humorous, like the one in the Vomit Comet with her and Ray McPherson doing a bizarre twist in micro-gravity. Some of the later slides were from the lunar base, showing the work being done there to unlock the secrets of the Moon. It had grown in a few years to a small village, nestled near the Aitken Crater at the lunar South Pole. In Wendy's lifetime the Moon had once been terra incognita, where no one had been. What an age we live in! she thought.
When she finished, the audience applauded with more enthusiasm than Wendy thought she deserved. She never considered herself an inspirational speaker. The woman who introduced her walked up on the stage, clapping. "I think we have time for some questions," she said into the microphone. Instantly, a couple dozen hands went up. "OK, the woman in the front." She pointed. "Yes, you."
A woman, a girl, actually, who must still be in college, stood up. "Dr. Jacobson, when did you first decide to be an astronaut? Was it when Nixon made his announcement?"
Someone always asked a variation on that question. A lot of female space travelers had told Wendy that they had not even imagined being an astronaut before the ranks had been thrown open to women. Before that, space travel had been a boys' club. It had been different with Wendy.
"Well, that would have been a spur of the moment thing, now wouldn't it," Wendy replied. There was good-natured laughter. "No, to answer your question, it was a few years before. It was inspired, as chance would have it, by another announcement entirely."
* * *
Wendy's freshman year at collage had been a liberation. She was free from the discipline of home and family and from the more subtle but just as real oppressions of high school. She was going to a university hundreds of miles away from home and was linked to her parents only by the tenuous lines of telephone and mail. She could come and go as she pleased. Within reason, she could do as she pleased.
Not that she went wild or anything. A beer at a party or maybe a make-out session with her boyfriend (clothes on, thank you very much) was her speed. And she liked going to college for the purpose it existed, which was actually learning stuff. She was not sure what she was going to learn. Most people she knew, her family and friends, assumed that she was going to be a teacher. That was the prime career of most women of a scholarly bent in the year 1961. And maybe they were right. But even then, Wendy felt a certain vague discontent. Was that all there was? Was there not something more?
Certainly her boyfriend didn't think so. Bob had it all planned out. After they graduated, they would get married, and she would support him through law school. After he passed the bar, she would quit teaching and have babies while he climbed up the corporate law ladder. All very neat and tied up in a package, along with the suburban home with the white picket fence. It even held a certain attraction. Bob was not like any boy she had ever known. He was handsome, gentlemanly, and actually seemed to listen to her opinions.
Or did he? Oh, he would smile and nod when she said something good about President Kennedy. He was a northeastern Republican, clean-cut, sound, without too many alarming opinions. She wondered, though, what he would think if she told him that maybe she didn't want to settle down and have babies. That she wanted something more?
But what? That was the question. Teaching science to a bunch of high schoolers didn't really appeal to her either. Maybe she could be a scientist. Marie Curie had been one and she had even been married. Could she have both? Career and family? Most people she knew believed that any girl who actually tried to have a career was doomed to spinsterhood or worse.
The answer came quite suddenly in May, with finals over, but with her parents scheduled to pick her up for the summer the day after next. She was in the student lounge, looking at the schedule for the fall semester. Bob had already gone home to his parents in upstate New York. They had vague plans for her to come visit sometime in July. A TV was murmuring the news somewhere in the background.
Something caught her attention, and she looked up. The anchorman was saying something. "President Kennedy announced, today, before a joint session of Congress, a new goal for America's space program, now struggling to catch up with the Soviets."
The black and white TV showed the President at the podium. "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth," he said. "No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."
The words hit her like a lightning bolt, numbing her, making her oblivious to anything else. It was as if everything had been made clear. No more questions. No more doubts. She now knew what she wanted to do with her life.
She felt herself rising to her feet, clasping her purse to her, and walking out of the student lounge. The sky was already darkening outside, and the Moon was full, just over the horizon. She looked at it for a long time.
Then she said to herself, A man on the Moon. A woman too, I think. And it's going to be me.
She threw her arms up and jumped, giving a yell. A couple walking by stared at her briefly. She didn't care. She was going to the Moon.
* * *
Wendy didn't have the courage to mention this fact to her parents when they picked her up the next day, nor indeed throughout the summer. She was pretty sure that they would think she had gone crazy, wanting to fly in space. Her father was dubious of the whole idea of anyone flying in space, ridiculing it when she brought it up one evening at the dinner table. "A waste of the tax payers' money, if you ask me," he grumbled. She didn't mention it again.
She did write a letter to NASA, probably one of the millions it got from kids all over the world. How does one become an astronaut? The reply came about a month later like a slap across the face. Astronauts, the reply explained, were chosen from military test pilots. Military test pilots were men. Hence, girls such as Wendy were not likely to be considered. The letter did go on to mention something about NASA needing scientists and engineers and perhaps therein would be a more realistic career path. But by that time tears were welling up. She felt depressed the rest of the day, moping about in her room. Her mother thought she might be sick and was worried.
A strange thing happened, though, beyond the disappointment and the hurt. She did the math on her college career. Three more years of undergraduate school. Maybe another three years of getting a masters and a doctorate. That brought her up to 1967. The policy might be military test pilots now, but policies could change. Indeed, if NASA proposed to send people to the Moon, they would need for some of them to be scientists. So that was what she would become.
The choice of what kind was almost immediately obvious. She would become a geologist. She could close her eyes and imagine herself, clad in a silvery space suit, walking across the surface of the Moon, picking up rocks and soil samples. She had made an A in Earth Science in high school, as she had with most of her courses. Nevertheless, she went to the library in town and devoured every book she could find on the subject, which weren't many. She was able to come to the conclusion that there was much she had to learn on the subject.
Around the 4th of July she went up to visit Bob and his family. The traditional get to know the son's girlfriend dinner started awkwardly enough, but they soon warmed to each other. The next day, Bob and she went out on the lake in a speed boat. She loved the way the water sprayed on her as they roared up and down the lake, slicing through the water.
Later, they put into a little cove, stopped the engine, and lay in one another's arms as the boat gently rocked. She felt relaxed enough to tell him, "I think I know what I want my permanent major to be."
"Oh?" It sounded like he was unprepared for a serious conversation. Still he added, "What is it?"
"Geology."
He seemed to consider for a moment, then nodded his head. "Teaching geology. I hadn't thought about that, but ok."
"Not teaching, Bob. Doing."
Now he was really taken aback. He disengaged from her and they both sat up in the boat. "Doing what?"
"Research. Studying rocks and such."
He paused for just a moment, taking in this unexpected news. "Well, I never took you for a rock hound. Why this sudden interest?"
She took a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. "You know we're sending people to the Moon?"
"Yeah, a waste of-"
"I want to be part of that."
"What?"
"Going to the Moon."
He stared at her for just a second. Then, he laughed out loud. "Wends, for a moment you had me there. Goodness, you sounded as if you were serious."
"I am serious."
His laughter stopped as if cut off by a sword. "But Wends, they don't take girls in the space program."
"They will when I apply for it."
He sputtered for a moment. "But this is crazy talk. Leaving aside the total impossibility of what you're proposing, what about our plans?"
"Bob, did you ever want to do something so much that it hurt that you were not doing it this very moment? Well, that's what going to the Moon means to me. I want to do it. I want to do it more than I want my next breath. I can't explain why this is so. Before last May, I could not even conceive of it. But now-"
"More than us?"
Her heart did a flip flop. "What?"
"If you think I'm going to wait around why you chase this impossible dream, you're crazier than I thought."
"But we can work it out. Bob, honey, me being a scientist and an astronaut doesn't mean you can't be a lawyer."
He turned his face from her. "And what about being a mother?"
She hadn't thought about that. "I-"
"There'll be no time for children, of course," he said accusingly. "You would give that up too."
"But this is important to me. Why can't you understand?"
"Understand what? Not wanting to be a mother? Just so you can fly to the Moon? That's unnatural and I will not stand for it."
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Whether she was in a kind of inarticulate fury for being spoken to in such a matter or just that she had no answer to his accusations, she to this day did not know. Bob turned from her, gunned the engine of the speed boat, and pulled out of the cove.
They didn't speak to each other on the way to the dock, nor to the house. She mumbled her excuses to Bob's parents, went to the guest room, threw herself on the bed, and sobbed her eyes out.
When she came down for dinner, she didn't know what to expect. As it turned out, Bob pretended that nothing had happened. In a way, Wendy was relieved as she did not want a repeat of their confrontation over baked chicken almondine and rice pilaf.
The next day, Wendy and Bob's mother went into town, it was said, to go shopping, but actually to engage in a little potential daughter-in-law mother-in-law bonding. There were some good antique places in the little, upstate New York town, so for a time Wendy actually enjoyed herself.
They ate lunch together at a quaint little place where sandwiches and salads were served. Bob's mother dominated the conversation, at first, with stories of Bob growing up. The tone was, in a way, to sell Bob as a potential husband, since most of the stories were about the great grades he had gotten in school with a dash of his prowess on the athletic field. The message was very clear. Bob would be a good provider for any girl lucky enough to snag him.
Wendy was fairly bursting to tell the older woman of her own ambitions. It was not that she looked down her nose at being a wife and mother. Her own mother had been that, as had her mother, and so on very likely to the beginning of time. But she wanted something else, something more. It was scary what had been stirred inside her. Was she an unnatural woman for wanting to go to the Moon, to explore what was there? This sweet, older lady who was so filled with pride for her son would probably think so. If Wendy were to tell her what it was she had suddenly wanted to do with her life, she doubted that Bob's mother would even comprehend it.
So she smiled, nodded, and made inconsequential comments as Bob's mother prattled on. It was for the best.
The next day, Bob took her to the airport for the flight home. The car trip was tense, to say the least.
"I've been thinking about our conversation the other day," he said. "It seems to me that we need to think about things and we've got the whole summer to do so."
"Bob, I-"
"Let me finish. I want us to be together. To have a life together and grow old together. But that can't happen if you're going to chase this impossible dream of yours."
"But, Bob-"
"This is not subject for a discussion. You're going to have to choose, Wends. I can give you everything a woman can desire. This idea of yours, though, is only going to bring heartache and disappointment. I want you to think about that."
When he kissed her at the airport gate, Wendy realized that for all intents and purposes it was a kiss goodbye. The choice her had laid before her was really no choice at all.
She didn't know how she made it home without dissolving into tears. In a way she had gone far beyond that, to feeling a huge pit of loss in her stomach that might shrink with time, but might never go away.
The rest of the summer was pretty grim. Wendy was pretty sure that her parents could sense her disquiet and even guess as to its source. A couple of concerned and knowing looks from her mother when Bob's name was mentioned were enough. But neither of them raised the issue.
As autumn approached, they bundled her stuff and herself into the car for the long drive back to college.
It was during the car drive that Wendy told them the truth, or at least part of it, added with a minor lie. She was going to declare her major to be geology, which was true, with the intention of teaching it, which was a lie. Her father nodded and said, "Good."
"But honey," her mom said, "geology? Isn't it just a little-"
"Hard? Wendy has always made good grades on any subject."
"I was going to say inappropriate."
"I don't think so," her father said. "It'll give her some focus. Right, Wendy?"
"Sure, Dad," she replied. She suppressed a sigh. If her father really knew about her real intentions, he might feel differently.
Eventually they arrived at the university campus. She kissed her parents goodbye, then lugged her stuff to her dorm room. Her roommate had not arrived yet, which was a blessing because she now had a little peace and quiet to contemplate what she had to do next. She dreaded it more than anything she had ever had to do.
Finally, screwing up her courage, Wendy went down to the public area of the men's dorm. There was a row of open post boxes, where mail and other messages could be left. She took an envelope out of her purse. It contained the promise ring that Bob had given her the last fall semester, when they had decided to be exclusive and serious. She hesitated for just a moment, like the person on the edge of a bridge getting ready to jump. Then she slid the envelope into Bob's postal box. She took a deep sigh, partly of relief, partly of resignation. Then she turned around and went back to her dorm room.
The next thing she had to do was another thing she dreaded, as it once again involved confronting a man about her desire to do something unsuitable for a woman. In order to get her major changed to geology, she had to meet with the student advisor of the geology department. His name was Professor Cassidy. He was a middle aged, somewhat portly man with a bald head and a red beard. His sweater vest and his undone tie seemed typical frumpy academic until one looked at his hands. They were gnarled and calloused, bespeaking years of rock collecting. He had an outdoorsman tan as well. He wore horn rimmed glasses perched on his nose.
Professor Cassidy's office was a jumble. There were shelves filled with books and rock samples. Every bare space of wall bore pictures of a younger Cassidy at some volcano or mountain, rock hammer in one hand, rock in the other. The exception was a picture of a woman, young, athletic looking, her brown hair tied up, sitting outside a tent and looking up from a microscope that was set on a folding card table. She was handsome rather than beautiful. Wendy felt her gaze drawn to the picture for some reason. It looked old, like maybe from the forties or something.
Professor Cassidy seated her in the office's single guest chair, but remained standing himself. "Well, Miss Pendleton, why do you want to study geology?"
She had thought about trying to feed Professor Cassidy some kind of happy horseshit about always being fascinated by rocks. But something told her that was not the way she should approach it. "Did you, by any chance, hear the President's speech last May?" she asked.
"About landing a man on the Moon? Yes, I did."
"I want to be a part of that."
"Hmm."
"I want to do something that no one else ever did. I want to see a place that no one else has ever seen. I want to discover things that no one else has ever discovered. Maybe those are not appropriate things for me to want. Maybe I'm not a natural woman for wanting them. But I do, and I can no more help it than I can help wanting to breathe." She paused for a moment, feeling his gaze on her. "So that's why I want to be a geologist."
She waited for the inevitable response. The ridicule. The anger. The exasperation.
Instead Professor Cassidy bent down, picked up a pen from his desk, took a piece of paper, and signed it. He handed the paper to her. "That's your approval," he said. He rummaged through his desk and found another paper. He handed it to her. "A list of classes you'll be taking."
Wendy stared, incredulous. "That's it?"
"That's it." He paused for a moment, as if considering his next words carefully. "Except a word of advice. You will, of course, have to be twice as good as anyone else if you intend to succeed. Three times as good, considering your ambition."
"Yes, sir."
"Still, if you can maintain that passion in the years to come that I've just witnessed, I think I will live to see you doing good geology on the surface of the Moon. Good look, Miss Pendleton."
Wendy left the office feeling a kind of elation that she had rarely experienced. Expecting ridicule and resistance, she had actually gotten encouragement.
The elation lasted about a day.
Professor Cassidy was not kidding about her having to be better than everyone else. Very often during the next three years she found herself the sole female in many of her science classes. She could tell right away by tone and expression than some few of her professors thought it was one female too many. There was nothing overt, of course, but she could tell.
It was fortunate, therefore, that she had broken up with Bob, since her studying and lab work pretty much meant that there was no time for a social life. She found herself living a life so ascetic that she might as well have been a nun.
But the payoff was that every time a question was asked in class, she had the answer. If she missed a question on a test (and that occurrence was very rare) it was not from lack of study. Later, when a class would go on a field trip, she was always the first to determine the context of every sample gathered. She learned to tell practically at a glance the history and nature of every rock, every scoop of dirt, that she gathered.
Slowly, but surely, she found herself winning over the skeptics among the geology department faculty and her fellow students. Indeed, she was a favorite source of answers to questions the other students were struggling with.
She graduated in 1965 and went straight to the Masters program. She was the only woman in that program that year. Her parents raised an eyebrow about that, but she intimated the idea of teaching college rather than high school. Her father nodded with approval, but her mother expressed the worry that her single daughter was going to grow old as a spinster.
Her only recreation during those years was watching coverage of the Moon race. Gemini missions came and went with stunning regularity. Space walks, rendezvous and docking, and long-duration missions were challenges attempted and met.
Around the time she entered the doctorate program, the geology department had added some courses in lunar geology, then a very young science. The title of Wendy's dissertation was "The Impact Creation of Lunar Craters." In those days there was an argument between those who believed that lunar craters had been created by meteor impacts and those who believed that they had been created by volcanic action. Wendy produced a thesis that argued for the former theory, using some of the most recent evidence gathered from the lunar orbiter and lunar Surveyor probes.
About a week after her dissertation was accepted, with Professor Cassidy asking the toughest questions during the verbal defense, there was a party at the university for some of the newly minted PHDs. Her parents drove up to attend, proud to varying degrees as always. Sometime in the middle of it, Professor Cassidy drew her aside.
"Are you still interested in going to the Moon?" he asked.
Wendy was astonished that he still remembered. "More than ever."
"Well, NASA is still not taking female astronauts, but they are taking female geologists. Could be a foot in the door."
"I've been thinking along those lines."
Professor Cassidy took an envelope out of his pocket. "This is a letter of introduction to an old collogue of mine over at NASA, Dr. Shoemaker. I think he would be the one to talk to about getting a job there."
Wendy took the letter. "Thank you."
"Good luck," he said.
· * * *
She never saw Professor Cassidy again. She did get a congratulatory note from him after she was named as an astronaut. It had been a remarkable stroke of luck on her part. President Nixon, for reasons only known to him and some of his closest advisors at the time, had taken a sudden interest in the space program in the fall of 1969. He had announced three additional Apollo missions to the Moon. At the same time he had ordered NASA to actively recruit women and minorities to the astronaut office. As a geologist working at the Lunar Receiving Lab in Houston, Wendy had been perfectly positioned to get one of those slots.
The rest, as they say, was history. She had flown on the final flight of the Apollo series, Apollo 23, and had explored the shadowed craters of the Lunar South Pole, discovering a treasure trove of ice, deposited over billions of years by comet impacts. When the ascent engine of their lunar lander had failed to fire, she and her crewmate, Ray McPherson, were trapped on the Moon. They might well have died there had it not be for a spectacular and risky rescue mission conducted by a refurbished privately built space shuttle.
She had returned to Earth the most famous woman in the world. The round of parties, parades, and celebrations had seemed endless, but fortunately had not been. The one such that she remembered most fondly was the ceremony in which she had gotten married to a man she had met and fallen in love with at NASA. She had gotten the Moon, love, everything, it seemed.
She had actually run into Bob at a White House reception soon after she had returned from the Moon. He had gained a little weight, lost a little hair, and had a wife by his side. He had actually been elected to the US House, having traded the wealth of corporate law for the power of politics. After a few introductions, the wife had left them alone for a little bit to talk to some acquaintance.
"Wends, I-" he began.
"Bob, you don't need to-"
"But I do. It's a little complicated. I'm very sure that we could never have been together. I'm not the kind of guy who can be outshone by his woman."
"That's honesty."
"But I do regret all the things I said to you about-well-this. Clearly I was wrong, and I'm sorry."
Well, that was unexpected. It must have taken a lot for him to make such an admission. Perhaps age had come with some humility. "Thank you," she said, softly.
"Are you happy, Wends?"
What a strange question. "Of course I am."
He nodded, his face a mask. "Good, good." Then his wife came around and steered him away to some other important conversation.
She remembered the sad look on Bob's face when she finished the question and answer session. It was something that haunted her. Why was he sad? He had his career and the perfect (for him) wife. Did he think that he might have had something more?
Afterwards there was a reception, with punch and little finger food. Wendy mused that when she was starting out there were fewer women geologists in the world than now crowded into this room, telling her how much they admired her, asking for autographs, and so on.
An older woman, gray haired, leaning on a cane, came up to her. "Dr. Pendleton," she said, extending her hand. "I'm Susan Cassidy."
Wendy blinked in surprise and confusion as she took the other woman's hand.
"I'm sorry, I should have also mentioned that I'm Gerry Cassidy's wife," she added. "Widow, that is."
The woman in the photos! Wendy suddenly realized. "Ah-how do you do. I had heard that Professor Cassidy had passed on."
"Years ago," Susan Cassidy said. "Not before he saw you walk on the Moon. He made sure that the TV was on in his hospital room. He could not have been more proud than if it had been me."
"You were a geologist too," Wendy suddenly realized.
"I was one of Gerry's grad students, right after the war." Of course she meant World War II. "I even got my doctorate. We got married and we were going to teach together. Of course in those days it was much harder for a woman to get that kind of job. Then I got pregnant and we decided that I best be a full time mother."
Wendy was speechless, for a moment.
"You are going to ask me whether I have any regrets," Susan Cassidy said. "I think Gerry had more of them for my sake. He really wanted me to succeed. But I have four wonderful children and who, in the great scheme of things, can regret that?"
"Still-"
"When you went to the Moon, dear, we went with you. And now, look?" She gestured at everyone in the room. "Everyone can."
"Thank you."
"No, thank you."
She thought about her encounter with Susan Cassidy on the drive home and afterwards, as she reclined in a lawn chair in the backyard, looking up at the crescent Moon. Just at the southern tip, if one had good eyes, one could see something that had not been there just a short time ago; the soft glow of the lights of Port Armstrong.
She felt a soft kiss on the top of her head and looked up, seeing the gentle face of her husband. "What're you thinking?" he asked.
"That I'm the luckiest woman in the world." She glanced up at the Moon. "Two worlds."
He laughed. "Come on inside, darling. Let's get supper ready."
She took his hand to help her to her feet. Then arm in arm they went into the house