RBG a role model for senior women. I like the individual exercise variations for home and gym strength or stamina. Thank you Bryant Johnson. CongratulRBG a role model for senior women. I like the individual exercise variations for home and gym strength or stamina. Thank you Bryant Johnson. Congratulations to all the women in your family as well. ...more
Although a biography of Dr Walt Lillihei, this is a medical story and history of cardiac medicine. Many people were key contributors.
Technical inventAlthough a biography of Dr Walt Lillihei, this is a medical story and history of cardiac medicine. Many people were key contributors.
Technical inventions:
Page 103 Heart Catheterization: Nobel Prize winner, Werner Forssmann, 1920s Berlin (Berlin Babylon era) did a heart Catheterization on himself. Climbed upstairs to radiology department took an X-ray to check whether or not the catheter was in the heart, almost passed out. Fellow doctors thought he had committed suicide.
Page 127 Anesthesia: Before anesthesiology was a named medical speciality, before ventilators, before pulse oximeters, and timely blood-gas analysis, after ether soaked rags were abandoned, other explosive gases were used (cyclopropane). One estimate in 1954, 130 explosions in American operating rooms, 30 were fatal. The worst accidents took out a doctor or nurse, as well as patients.
Heart Lung perfusion: Pages 130-131: Cross circulation with beer hose between parent and baby, was forerunner of machines. Page 170-171 Dewall/Lillihei bubble oxygenator, $15 Heart Lung perfusion machines.
Pacemaker: Page 196-197. In 1957 Earl Bakken, worked with Dr Lillihei to invent portable pacemaker. Eventually became Medtronic.
Data collection: Page 116-117. Dr Jesse Edwards pathologist at Mayo Clinic, had saved every heart from every autopsy since early in the century. Dr Edwards believed his collection of hearts belonged to science. Dr Lillihei and team, found 50 hearts with VSD (ventral septal defects). Page 118. The doctors had examined 50 hearts and found NO TWO WERE EXACTLY THE SAME. (Caps mine)
In the spring of 2020, like the rest of the world, I found out about Covid-19. Like many others I started making masks. Three design iterations and material scarcity work arounds (fabric, elastic, ties, nose pieces) we discovered ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL.
I am the beneficiary of this work and sacrifice having a VSD repaired in 1963.
How to make peace with a misbehaving body and live a mindful creative writers life. The lessons of DeSalvo's diary apply to not only writing, but creaHow to make peace with a misbehaving body and live a mindful creative writers life. The lessons of DeSalvo's diary apply to not only writing, but creative intellectual work.
Asthma triggers: Pollution. Exhaust fumes, particularly from diesel engines. Smoke. Perfume. Certain foods and herbs (shellfish, aged cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms and thyme) Nail polish remover. Hair spray. Sulfites, MSG. Preservatives. Aspirin. Paint fumes. Ink (newsprint; my printer). Cleaning fluid. Mold. Anything used by an exterminator. Rushing. Laughing. Fear.
pg 49: At first, I miss eating out. Soon though, I don't. And then a perfect, though simply prepared, dinner in our home, accompanied by a glass of special wine, becomes the high point of our day. But eating, now, if I pay careful attention, affords me the most intense pleasure I have, so I take my time with it. I appreciate, now, the look, the feel, the smell of ingredients. I now enjoy shopping for food and preparing it the way I once enjoyed going to a museum, a Broadway play, or a concert at Lincoln Center. I have found that paying attention to food can be deeply restorative. Cooking forces me to stop thinking about work, to put intellectual work into it's proper perspective. Nothing, after all, can please the way a fabulous pasta can.
And, as I say often, life is too short to have even one bad meal. Asthma has taken much from me---but asthma has given me this.
pg 29 Virginia Woolf in her diary wonders, always, not when she'll be well, but when she'll be well enough to work---an essential difference, I understand now that I myself have a chronic illness. For what I learned from Woolf's diaries is that if one works despite illness, and through illness, then one can restore one's sense of self-worth, so deeply challenged by the experience of illness. Have adapted Virginia Woolf work schedule, adapted by Louise DeSalvo for my stay home Covid schedule.
pg 90: Woolf wrote 3 uninterrupted hours a day, from ten to one. Sometimes she stole a few minutes from whatever creative project she was writing to pen an entry into her writer's diary, where she described what was happening in her life and also assessed her feelings about her work, monitored her progress, made schedules to ensure the completion of her books, dreamed new books, and worried about the reception of her publications. Sometimes she saw friends for lunch; often she didn't.
Afternoons, she did what she called the "donkey work" of a writer's life--typing what she had composed in the mornings, correcting proof, writing letters, reading for reviews. ..in the late afternoons she took very long walks, both to clear her head from the pressure of creative work, but also to think through puzzles or stumbling blocks in the work. (These walks, kept Woolf emotionally stable and depression-free for long periods of time. At the end of her life, Woolf was deprived of her walks. Woolf eventually became seriously depressed and killed herself). Evenings, Woolf saw friends or went to a concert or a play or later in life, listened to recordings on the gramophone.
Her creative work came first. And always, always, she assessed he impact of the way she was living her life on her productivity. If her writing was not going well enough because of too many social engagements, she cut back on her attendance at dinner parties....more
Gleick takes the time to explain the physics problems that Feynman solved. He also explains the context of the problems when he solved them. After ArlGleick takes the time to explain the physics problems that Feynman solved. He also explains the context of the problems when he solved them. After Arline died he was a jerk with women until around 40 he decided he should settle down.
I was amazed that the whole field of quantum mechanics/statistical mechanics was invented/discovered only 15 years before it was taught in freshman physics and junior year P. Chem.
Entertaining story of the Feynmann lectures (Red Books) on Physics for freshman. The class was kind of a dud, with the freshmen at Cal Tech quietly escaping the lectures to be replaced by physics grad students and professors. ...more
Many Thanks Margot Shetterly for spending six years writing this book. Good job on the screenplay.
Best lines: Page 180: 1948 Dorothy Lee was asked by aMany Thanks Margot Shetterly for spending six years writing this book. Good job on the screenplay.
Best lines: Page 180: 1948 Dorothy Lee was asked by a local press reporter "Do you believe that women working with men have to think like a man, work like a dog, and act like a lady?" "Yes, I do," she answered.
Page 200: Levi Jackson winner of the 1960 Virginia Soap Box Derby" What do you want to be when you grow up? "I want to be an engineer like my mother."
Page 204: Robert Kennedy commenting in 1963 on school segregation "The only places on earth known not to provide free public education are Communist China, North Vietnam, Sarawak, Singapore, British Honduras----and Prince Edward County, Virginia.
Wisdom : Page 196 Mary Jackson: The deep humanitarianism that was her family inheritance had taught her to see achievement as something that functioned like a bank account, something you drew on when you were in need and made deposits to when you were blessed with a surplus.
Page 220 Katherine Johnson: Simple luck is the random birthright of the hapless. When seasoned by the subtleties of accident, harmony, favor, wisdom, and inevitability, luck takes on the case of serendipity. Serendipity happens when a well-trained mind looking for one thing encounters something else;the unexpected. It comes from being in a position to seize opportunity from the happy marriage of time, place and chance. It was serendipity that called her in the countdown to John Glenn's flight.
page 247: Epilogue: There is something about this story that seems to resonate with people of all races, ethnicities, genders, ages and backgrounds. It's a story of hope, that even among some of our country's harshest realities-legalized segregation, racial discrimination-there is evidence of the triumph of meritocracy, that each of us should be allowed to rise as far as our talent and hard work can take us.
page 248: Damage to Apollo 13 computers were out. Astronaut Jim Lovell used an even simpler calculation to tack his spaceship toward home, lining up the ship's optical sight with Earth's terminator, the line dividing the side of Earth that was in daylight from the shadow side, in nighttime. It was serendipitous that Lovell had taken the technique for a test run on Apollo 8 and knew how to make the calculations. What seemed like a routine check on a previous mission would save the crew's lives this time around. No one knew better than Katherine Johnson that luck favored the prepared.
pg 263: Dorothy Vaughn "What I changed, I could; what I couldn't, I endured.
Encounter with Nichelle Nichols, Lt Uhura and Dr Martin Luther King Jr convincing her to stay with Startrek show....more
Read on Thanksgiving, made me thankful to be living in the US in 2013. Not a good time to be female in Germany during Einstein's time. Ms. Curie was aRead on Thanksgiving, made me thankful to be living in the US in 2013. Not a good time to be female in Germany during Einstein's time. Ms. Curie was an exception. Interesting times in the development of experimental and theoretical physics. Einsteins strength was not mathematics he found quantum physics and statistical mechanics difficult to accept. There must be different types of scientific intuition, one based on stochastics, the other on empirical intuition. People with stochastic intuition are the ones who put themselves through college playing card games (poker, bridge etc). Empirical intuition belongs to engineers and tinkerers who "see" patterns. Good narrative on Non-euclidean geometry, Reimann, tensors. One of Einsteins sons developed schizopherenia, like one of John Nash son's. So thankful women have alternatives than dependence to survive. Thank you M. Curie....more
Beautiful insights into his personality from his letters. What a wonderful human being. RPF: Sorry to report higher mgmt has not changed.
page 405 RPF Beautiful insights into his personality from his letters. What a wonderful human being. RPF: Sorry to report higher mgmt has not changed.
page 405 RPF to John Young December 8, 1986 On the Challenger accident. "I was particularly impressed by the careful analysis exhibition in the testimony of Mr Hartsfield, yourself and the other astronauts during one of our public meetings. It seemed that you were the only people thinking about the future, and the causes of things in a clear way. It soon became apparent that the testimony of higher management was a bit muddleheaded about why they weren't told, why the system broke down, etc. They weren't told because they didn't want to hear any doubts or bad news.... I hear the same thing is happening again--complex questions being hidden in innocuous little "bullets" so even the joint certifying committee is having trouble getting information.
Is there anything you astronauts can do to clean the Augean stable?
I read this sometime ago, found at Barnes and Noble on the remainder table. The author is a graduate student not too sure about a career in theoreticaI read this sometime ago, found at Barnes and Noble on the remainder table. The author is a graduate student not too sure about a career in theoretical physics. A few encounters with Feynmann who is already famous, help him to give himself permission to follow his heart. ...more
There are only two races of people. Decent and Indecent. Nash is clearly brilliant but deeply flawed in the way he treated his son and the mother of hThere are only two races of people. Decent and Indecent. Nash is clearly brilliant but deeply flawed in the way he treated his son and the mother of his son. ...more
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