IUBio

Physicists in dance

James Marshall marshall at astro.umd.edu
Tue Jun 8 10:35:10 EST 2004


In article <f8b945bc.0406072200.1e5b4303 at posting.google.com> jeffm_ at email.com (JeffM) writes:

>>Scaringly many dancers are scientists or even physicists!
>>why?

>As Victor noticed (my observation as well) there are many engineers
>(don't exclude technicians and technologists) as well.
>He postulated the *patterns* thing.  I won't argue there.

I think I replied before.  And I agree, I think the logical structure
of dancing, having combinations built of figures built of specific steps,
is something that science and engineering types can go for.  And there's
always technique to analyze if you like that.

>It may also be practical application of
>force vectors, torque moments, center of gravity, angular momentum, (etc.)
>--all the stuff you learned in class--and putting it to everyday use.

Maybe, but I certainly don't consider any of that stuff while dancing.  :)

>Never discount the *income* thing.

As in they tend to make more money, enough to sustain series of classes,
private lessons, competitions, etc.?  I guess that's possible, too.
     I heard someone talking at the dance I went to last night and I
he said something like, "there are only two reasons straight men get
into dancing -- a woman or women."  :)  As was probably mentioned,
it's not unusual for science/engineering types to not be so good socially
and the logical structure of dancing helps give them a transition into
a social activity.  And it is nice to hold a woman in your arms and
dance around the floor with her for a few minutes.  :)

>BTW--Scaringly ??

I didn't quite get that either.  But the science/engineering fields tend
to be rather male dominated.  So if most dancers come from those general
fields, they're probably mostly men.  This could mean a shortage of
women at dances.

-- 
      .      .        .       .         -- James Marshall     (ORI)  *   ,
 ,.  -- )-- ,   , . -- )-- ,            marshall at astro.umd.edu
          '             '       http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall    ''' 
"Astronomy is a dyslexic's nightmare."                               ,   *



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