Free public talk: Janet Gordon - My Inquiry into Ability, Disability, Love, and Physics

Name: Free public talk: Janet Gordon - My Inquiry into Ability, Disability, Love, and Physics
Start: 2024-10-17T17:30:00-04:00
Location: Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

Schedule

Thu Oct 17 2024 at 05:30 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Facility for Rare Isotope Beams | East Lansing, MI

FRIB invites the community to the next Advanced Studies Gateway public talk event. Janet Gordon, will give a public talk titled My Inquiry into Ability, Disability, Love, and Physics: The Story of Morton and Bernice Gordon. The event is free. The talk will begin at 5:30 p.m. on 17 October in 1300 FRIB Laboratory, 640 South Shaw Lane, on Michigan State University's campus.
From the speaker:
“A few years ago, I began to write about my parents, Mort and Bernice Gordon, to solve the mystery of their remarkable partnership. My father, a blind physicist, and my mother, his reader, who lived with spina bifida, were bound together by love and necessity decades before recognition of their rights as disabled people. I explored their letters, interviewed Dad’s colleagues, searched for his publications, and listened to audio tapes of their work. As I revisited the scenes we shared, I developed a new understanding of how and what they taught me; my sister, Anne; his students; and their community.
Mort Gordon was a college student during World War II, when he learned that he was going blind from retinitis pigmentosa. Then Mort made two important decisions: he began studying physics, and he courted and married Bernice Rubinstein. These choices enabled him to contribute to the world of accelerator physics and raise a family. Mort, as a new PhD, faced discrimination because of “decreased vision,” then worked on an innovative cyclotron project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which led him to take a job at Michigan State University and create something new. Mort and Bernice Gordon ingeniously found ways for the professor to teach his classes, develop the mathematics and computer models essential for MSU’s innovative cyclotrons, and share knowledge with colleagues around the world. Their story lives at the intersection of disability history and physics history. It illuminates the importance of sustained curiosity and the benefits of persistence, mentoring, and collaboration.”
All Advanced Studies Gateway events are free and open to the public. Parking will be available in the Shaw Lane and Wharton Center parking ramps.
The Advanced Studies Gateway is an initiative at FRIB that brings together researchers, innovators, creative thinkers, artists, and performers from all fields and strengthens ties between Michigan State University and the community. Activities include research workshops as well as public talks, concerts, and special events that are free and open to the public.
For more information about accessible accommodations and the Advanced Studies Gateway at FRIB, visit frib.msu.edu/gateway.