this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
508 points (96.4% liked)

Science Memes

20394 readers
3748 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
all 40 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] cockmushroom@reddthat.com 3 points 3 hours ago

Turns out she even caught the world's first bug and wrote its second https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note_G?wprov=sfla1

[–] xx3rawr@sh.itjust.works 20 points 9 hours ago

IIRC back when "computer" is a person rather than an object, it was a woman's job.

[–] Akasazh@lemmy.world 13 points 13 hours ago

Lovelace

On the subject of lace, making it is very intricate and quite mathematical too

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 10 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I can't help but feel that we aren't even close to matching the intelligence of women.

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 12 hours ago

Well obviously for you if username checks out...

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Hooray for the Lady who might have written the first algorithm! She needs more attention.

Other: Charles Babbage (sp?) and the Analytic Engine: perhaps our first real computer. Imagine a steampunk world where all our devices were powered by huge mechanical chunks and chonks.

I saw a video of a constructed Analytical Engine (they couldn't manufacture the parts to the specs required in Babbage's time) donated to a Computer History museum by an early Microsoft exec. Didn't find it on a quick search, but it's a huge thing driven by a physical crank.

[–] call_me_xale@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 9 minutes ago) (1 children)

This woman wrote computer programs while computers were still almost purely theoretical. Fucking mind-blowing.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 hours ago

I can't imagine a more advanced mind. I mean, maybe Einstein, but we have proof of her discoveries and they're not at all abstract in the contemporary world! (I mean, they kinda are, but you get what I mean.)

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago

honestly, drawing patterns only uses "calculus" and "trig" because those are the arbitrary names given to the thought processes that blend the proper melding of mind to motion

[–] psud@aussie.zone 13 points 15 hours ago

In my town the fact girls were worse than boys at maths was addressed, education of girls was improved

Now girls are better than boys at maths and no one seems to care

[–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 102 points 1 day ago (4 children)

The intent of the post, sure. Women and men are equally capable of anything.

But absolutely nobody creating sewing patterns is sitting down and going "alright the integral of e to the x dx is...." Or remembering their laplace transformations.

[–] Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club -1 points 4 hours ago

Do you think "mental calculus" means people are doing derivatives in their heads?

It doesn't. It's also not what was meant by the author of this post when they used the word.

[–] Melobol@lemmy.ml 36 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I love over-complicating things... but Calculus in a sewing pattern sounds really strange.
Unless... it is like for a space suit where you need to be accurate? Or making something for a form fitting hard surface?

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

I imagine people are using calculus to analyze knitting patterns and stuff. Not the knitters themselves, but mathematicians who are studying knots or whatever

[–] Wren@lemmy.today 15 points 1 day ago

Quilters would like a word.

[–] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

where you need to be accurate

Only if you want clothes that fit

[–] Seleni@lemmy.world 12 points 22 hours ago

Of course they don’t mean women pull out a calculator, a notebook, and start doing calculations, anymore than when a person throws a ball at a target they pull out some graph paper and start calculating parabolic arcs and all that shit. They’re saying we do it instinctively, and if we’re good at doing it instinctively then we can do it intellectually.

[–] pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm not saying I couldn't see cases where I would seriously consider using calculus in a sewing pattern, but it's really not used in sewing pattern creation basically ever unless someone already knows it and has a very specific use case. I suspect the OP meant "calculations" or something similar and mis-typed.

Source: I still remember a fair amount of calculus and I sew

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 50 points 1 day ago (1 children)
  1. as the title indicates, women have been there since the dawn of computing
  2. computer referred to a person that did calculations, and it was usually a woman.
  3. is sitting on your ass on a comfortable chair in front of a computer instead of running around caving in skulls really masculine or feminine?
[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 35 points 1 day ago

The origins of computer programming are also intertwined with textiles, as the first punch card programs emerged as part of weaving in the early 1800s (Jacquard looms).

Also interesting: trans people in addition to cis women are historically associated with textile production in many cultures. Trans programmer socks = modern day trans weaver.

[–] applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

whats really funny to me is people make this claim, but any good study that looks for differences finds none or that women are very slightly better at math and spatial reasoning

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 9 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Got a good link to read and share?

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

This finds the opposite and proves the original conjecture, that men perform better than women on spatial tasks

32% of college women failed the test, compared to 15% of college men

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

So both genders are fucking stupid?

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Everybody is stupid, unless the CHOOSE not to be.

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 1 points 5 hours ago

Don't be silly. I have an overcomplicated learning chart, and neither the time nor capacity to study.

My speech patterns are still stained with my earlier learnings, making me sound smarter than I am.

People just don't feel comfortable with the idea that their intelligence can simply be taken away.

[–] Azzu@leminal.space 0 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Wait you're telling me that women are better? So that differences between the sexes exist?

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 points 27 minutes ago

No, the point is that there isn't, and experiments that do show a slight difference are probably due to experimental error, biases, sampling differences, etc.

Simply being either a man or woman does not make you better than another.

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 11 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Remember me to

A lot of math needed, more as for the pattern, to make clothes to fit on an irregular body

First computers are based on the input of sewing machines

[–] wyldrstallyns@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

Whenever I hear someone slopping that "adage" out, I silently note that they've no idea how many of the Apollo astronauts were able to return to Earth safely. (It rhymes with "female mathematicians", btw.)

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

(It rhymes with "female mathematicians", btw.)

...The male mathematicians? Retail statisticians?? Detailed staff positions???

[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 21 hours ago

All of them, the answer is all of them. Follow me for more English hacks!

[–] fiveze@lemmy.world 5 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

I wonder if this is what they were referencing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water-level_task
"...the finding that men perform [the water-level task] at a higher level has been robustly confirmed."

[–] HereIAm@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I assume for the college level students it's who can mark the level of the water most accurately? I certainly hope all of them would at least mark the water line horizontal to the ground

[–] psud@aussie.zone 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Wikipedia suggests a common failure is to not change the angle of the water surface, leaving it parallel to the base of the tube rather than to gravity

[–] psud@aussie.zone 2 points 15 hours ago

It goes on to say "One typical study from 1989 found that 32% of college women failed the test, compared to 15% of college men." A third of girls who made it into college couldn't do it.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 points 23 hours ago

Been seeing these shorts of a dude who does tie dye shirts, but he does hella math to know how fold the fabric up and get gnarly geometric shapes and mandalas. It's like damascus steel, but with trippy colors.