"Tom Maddox - Gravity's Angel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maddox Tom)

тАЬIтАЩm Carol Hendrix,тАЭ she said, and from the sound of her voice. she was just
a little bit amused. тАЬAre you Sax?тАЭ

тАЬYes,тАЭ I said. And I asked, тАЬWhy didnтАЩt you tell me you were coming?тАЭ
Really I was just stalling, trying to take in the fact that this woman was the one IтАЩd
been writing to for the past six months.

We had begun corresponding in our roles as group leaders at our respective
labs, me at SSC-Texlab, her at Los Alamos, but had continued out of shared
personal concerns: a mutual obsession with high-energy physics and an equally
strong frustration with the way big-time science was conductedтАФthe whole
extra-scientific carnival of politics and publicity that has surrounded particle
accelerators from their inception.

Her letters were sometimes helter-skelter but were always interestingтАФ reports
from a powerful, disciplined intelligence working at its limits. She had the kind of
mind IтАЩd always appreciated, one comfortable with both experiment and theory. You
wouldnтАЩt believe how rare that is in high-energy physics.

Women in the sciences can be hard and distant and self-protective, because
theyтАЩre working in a manтАЩs world and they know what that means. They tell each
other the stories, true ones: about Rosalind Franklin not getting the Nobel for her
X-ray work on DNA, Candace Pert not getting the Lasker for the first confirmation
of opiate receptors in the brain. And so they learn the truth: in most kinds of science,
there are few women, and they have to work harder and do better to get the same
credit as men, and they know it. ThatтАЩs the way things are.

Carol Hendrix looked pale and tired, young and vulnerableтАФnot at all what
IтАЩd expected. She was small, thin-boned, and her hair was clipped short. She wore
faded blue jeans, a shirt tied at the waist, and sandals over bare feet.

тАЬI didnтАЩt have time to get in touch with you,тАЭ she said. Then she laughed, and
her voice had a ragged, nervous edge to it. тАЬNo, thatтАЩs not true. I didnтАЩt get in touch
with you because I knew how busy you were, and you might tell me to come back
later. I canтАЩt do that. We need to talk, and I need your help . . . nowтАФbefore you do
your first full-beam runs.тАЭ

тАЬWhat kind of help?тАЭ I asked. Already, it seemed, the intimacy of our letters
was being transformed into instant friendship in real time.

тАЬI need Q-system time,тАЭ she said. She meant time on QUARKER, the labтАЩs
simulation and imaging system. She said, тАЬIтАЩve got some results, but theyтАЩre
incompleteтАФIтАЩve been working with kludged programs because at Los Alamos
weтАЩre not set up for your work. IтАЩve got to get at yours. If my simulations are
accurate, you need to postpone your runs.тАЭ

I looked hard at her. тАЬRight,тАЭ I said. тАЬThatтАЩs greatтАФjust what Diehl wants to
hear. That you want precious system time to confirm a hypothesis that could fuck
up our schedule.тАЭ