Once women embrace stem, there’s no going back to the old culture of ‘pink-collar’ jobs

The influx of women from the former Soviet Union, with their strong science and engineering culture, altered gender norms in Israel, write Naomi Friedman-Sokuler and Claudia Seni

Kantian Motives in Work of Ludwig Wittgenstein

It is proved that the basic framework of the premises and reasoning of Wittgenstein's “Tractatus Logico-philosophicus” corresponds quite well to the transcendental method (as formulated by H. Cohen). Whereas Kant’s philosophy proceeds from the fact of existence of mathematics and mathematised natural science and investigates their conditions of possibility, Wittgenstein proceeds from the fact that propositions of language describe reality and reveals the conditions of possibility of such descriptions. Kant, answering the question about the conditions of possibility of the named sciences, comes to the idea of the transcendental subject and the distinction between the world of phenomena and the thing in itself. Wittgenstein's investigation of the conditions of possibility that the world is described by propositions leads to the assertion that both the world and language are together in logical space. The latter constitutes the a priori and transcendental condition of the possibility that language “reaches out” to reality. For both the theories - in the “Critique of Pure Reason” and in the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” - the idea of the boundary is important. In the “Critique of Pure Reason” it is the boundary of possible experience and cognition, while in the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” it is the boundary of what can be thought and expressed by meaningful propositions. Related to the different definitions of the boundary is the difference in the treatment of mathematised natural science. For “The Critique of Pure Reason” was created in the era of unconditional acceptance of Newtonian mechanics. And the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” was created at the time of the crisis of the Newtonian paradigm and its replacement by other notions of time and space. However, the idea of boundary, which is present in both doctrines, determines closeness in the attitude towards metaphysics between the author of “The Critique of Pure Reason” and the author of “The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”. The study also shows that Wittgenstein did not follow logicism in his philosophy of mathematics. For him, both mathematical objects and propositions of logic are constructions. The conviction about the constructive character of mathematical and logical objects shows an affinity with the Kantian tradition in the philosophy of mathematics

Momentum-Transfer to and Elementary-Excitations of a Bose-Einstein Condensate by a Time-Dependent Optical Potential

We present results of calculations on Bose-Einstein condensed $^{87}$Rb atoms subjected to a moving standing-wave light-potential of the form $V_L(z,t) = V_0(t) \cos(q z-\omega t)$. We calculate the mean-field dynamics (the order paramter) of the condensate and determine the resulting condensate momentum in the $z$ direction, $P_z(q,\omega,V_0,t_p)$, where $V_0$ is the peak optical potential strength and $t_p$ is the pulse duration. Although the local density approximation for the Bogoliubov excitation spectral distribution is a good approximation for very low optical intensities, long pulse duration and sufficiently large values of the wavevector $q$ of the light-potential, for small $q$, short duration pulses, or for not-so-low intensities, the local density perturbative description of the excitation spectrum breaks down badly, as shown by our results.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Praise be to the plague?

Among the various human attitudes toward a pandemic, along with fear, despair and anger, there is also an urge to praise the catastrophe or imbue it with some sort of hope. In 2020 such hopes were voiced in the stream of all the other COVID-19 reactions and interpretations in the form of predictions of imminent social, political or economic changes that may or must be brought on by the pandemic, or as calls to “rise above” the common human sentiment and see the pandemic as some sort of cruel-but-necessary bitter pill to cure human depravity or social disorganization. Is it really possible for a plague of any kind to be considered a relief ? Or perhaps a just punishment? In order to assess the validity of such interpretations, this paper considers the artistic reactions to the pandemics of the past, specifically the images of the plague from Alexander Pushkin’s play Feast During the Plague, Antonin Artaud’s essay “The Theatre and the Plague” and Albert Camus’s novel The Plague. These works in different ways explore an attitude in which a plague can be praised in some respect. The plague can be a means of self-overcoming and purification for both an individual and for society. At the same time, Pushkin and Camus, each in his own way and by different means, show the illusory nature of that attitude. A mass catastrophe can reveal the resources already present in humankind, but it does not help either the individual or the society to progress

Wittgenstein und die Wittgensteinforschung in Rußland

Beginnen wir unsere Betrachtung mit dem Jahre 1958, als in der damaligen UdSSR die russische Übersetzung der "Logisch-Philosophischen Abhandlung" erschienen war. Das Buch erblickte die Welt dank der Anstrengungen von Frau Sofia A. Janowskaja, die viel zur Entwicklung der mathematischen Logik unter den Bedingungen des ideologischen Drucks der dialektisch-materialistischen Ideologie beigetragen hat. Die Übersetzung wurde gemacht, da man Wittgenstein als einen bedeutenden Logiker betrachtet hat. In den 60-er Jahren wurde diese Betrachtungsweise beibehalten. Die Ansichten von Wittgenstein wurden mit dem Positivismus des Wiener Kreises gleichgestellt, man betrachtete ihn als Gegner der Philosophie und als Apologeten der mathematischen Naturwissenschaft. Die Philosophie des dialektischen Materialismus wertete die These, daß philosophische Sätze und Fragen unsinnig sind, als direkten Angriff auf sich selbst, was das Verhältnis zu Wittgenstein und die vernichtenden Einschätzungen zur Folge hatten, die jede schriftliche Erwähnung seiner Philosophie begleiteten

From Pink-Collar to Lab Coat. Cultural Persistence and Diffusion of Socialist Gender Norms

This paper documents the persistence and diffusion of Soviet gender-equal norms, exploiting the 1990’s mass migration from the Former Soviet Union to Israel as a natural experiment. We track educational achievement and choices of an entire cohort, comparing gender gaps among Native students versus immigrants from FSU and other countries. We find evidence of vertical and horizontal diffusion of Soviet norms with respect to tertiary study field choice, especially those directly related to labor market occupations. In both traditionally male-dominated STEM fields and traditionally female “pink collar” jobs, such as education and social work, gender gaps are smallest among FSU immigrants. We show that these specific preferences are not explained by comparative advantages, as measured by early achievement.Finally, we show that among Natives the gender gap in field choice narrows with the presence of FSU immigrants, reflecting a shift in choice patterns of native women shift towards STEM and away from Pink collar study fields

From Pink-Collar to Lab Coat. Cultural Persistence and Diffusion of Socialist Gender Norms

The fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 led to a massive migration wave from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) to Israel. We document the persistence and transmission of the Soviet unconventional gender norms, both vertically across generations of immigrants, and horizontally through neighborhood and school peer effects. Tracking the educational and occupational choices of a cohort of young Israeli women, we identify the persistence of two important features of the Soviet culture: the prioritization of science and technology, and the strong female attachment to paid-work. Women born in the FSU, who immigrated in infancy, are significantly more likely than natives and other immigrants to major in STEM in high school. In tertiary education, they remain over-represented in STEM, but also differ significantly from other women by their specific avoidance of study fields leading to “pink collar” jobs, such as education and social work. They also display a specific choice of work-life balance reflecting a greater commitment to paid-work. Finally, the choice patterns of native women shift towards STEM and away from traditional female study fields as the share of FSU immigrants in their lower-secondary school increases

Time-Use and Subjective Well-Being: Is Diversity Really the Spice of Life?

Using the American and the French time-use surveys, we examine whether people have a preference for a more diversified mix of activities, in the sense that they experience greater well-being when their time schedule contains many different activities rather than is concentrated on a very small number. This could be due to decreasing marginal utility, as is assumed for goods consumption, if each episode of time is conceived as yielding a certain level of utility per se. With returns to specialization, people would then face a trade-off between efficiency and diversity in choosing how to allocate time. We examine these issues and investigate potential gender differences, considering both instantaneous feelings and life satisfaction

Gender streaming and prior achievement in high school science and mathematics

Girls choose advanced matriculation electives in science and mathematics almost as frequently as boys, in Israel, but are very much under-represented in physics and computer science, and over-represented in biology and chemistry. We test the hypothesis that these patterns stem from differences in mathematical ability. Administrative data on two half-cohorts of Israeli eighth-grade students in Hebrew-language schools links standardized test scores in mathematics, science, Hebrew and English to their subsequent choice of matriculation electives. It shows that the gendered choices they make remain largely intact after conditioning on prior test scores, indicating that these choices are not driven by differences in perceived mathematical ability, or by boys’ comparative advantage in mathematics. Moreover, girls who choose matriculation electives in physics and computer science score higher than boys, on average. Girls and boys react differently to early signals of mathematical and verbal ability; and girls are less adversely affected by socioeconomic disadvantage