Patricia’s Perfect Pull: A Crystal Grower’s Story(computerhistory.org)
computerhistory.org
Patricia’s Perfect Pull: A Crystal Grower’s Story
https://computerhistory.org/blog/patricias-perfect-pull/
5 comments
Speaking only for myself, I recommend reading the full story. I found it much more interesting than the tl;dr.
When stories make baseless and grandiose claims like
> While women have always made outstanding contributions in research, education, leadership, finance, and entrepreneurship in the Valley—although always in numbers curtailed by tremendous sexism, not talent
It makes me question how much credence I should put in the rest of the story. How does the author know that talent or desire had nothing to do with it, and any deviation of the world from their counterfactual ideal is the result of “tremendous sexism”?
> While women have always made outstanding contributions in research, education, leadership, finance, and entrepreneurship in the Valley—although always in numbers curtailed by tremendous sexism, not talent
It makes me question how much credence I should put in the rest of the story. How does the author know that talent or desire had nothing to do with it, and any deviation of the world from their counterfactual ideal is the result of “tremendous sexism”?
In fact, a very good puller could only rarely manage to incorporate every drop of melted silicon from the crucible into the grown crystal. Anderson did exactly this on June 20, 1968: “I got every bit of melt out of it, which you don’t normally. It doesn’t normally happen because you can’t see the bottom of the crystal as you’re tapering off.” It was a remarkable enough occurrence that she kept the fully emptied crucible, emblazoning it with “Pat’s Glory,” and the date.