[Tell It Right]

Whether it's nature or nurture (including which things the kids are interested in learning) or a little of both, I can tell you from my family that yes, men seem to pick up on math a lot better than women. I've seen a few outliers in the software development field, both in my career and back when I was getting a computer science degree. But they were outliers. Nor do I remember one teenage girl when I was a teenage boy interested in any of the conversations us hobby programmers had -- including some of us who ourselves joined the hobby by hearing others talk about coding.

For whatever reason few people in general dig it and way way fewer of them women.

[Bounced2X]

[FamiliarFace]

In my family growing up, 3 boys and 3 girls, I was the most math proficient in the family, and I think my little sister was next. All of my brothers are older than me, and one of my brothers needed remedial math in junior college. My brothers all struggled with algebra, but were some better at geometry. None of the 3 were better than I was at any type of math class.

However, my husband is an engineer, and he is definitely better with numbers than most anyone I know.

What this proves, I don’t know. I may have been the outlier growing up, but my brothers weren’t geniuses in math. In fact, they weren’t much genius at any school subjects. The one brother who is terrible at math is quite a historian, though. He knows all sorts of historical information.

[gitmo]

I’ve attended many conferences on IT, and 90% plus of the attendees are men. The only exception is Data Base Administration. I found a lot of women in those meetings.

[dr_lew2]

My Mom was my model mathematician. She worked at Bell Labs in Murray Hill back in its heyday, albeit in a support role. She was a big pal of Penzias and Wilson and Hamming, who were on top of the world at the time.

I did get a Ph.D. in physics, but took a job in programming at Indian Hill Bell Labs in IL. It’s just down the road from me, but has not been used for some time. In fact, they recently began demolishing the main campus here.

I didn’t even know that until my wife took me for a drive-by, just recently. It was quite a shock, and even disorienting, although ( obviously ) I hadn’t even given it a thought in years.

Time marches on.

By the way, a co-worker there gave me the appellation “Doctor Lew” and always addressed me that way. I didn’t mind it at all!