What was this story about a scientist contacting another one?

March 24, 2015 9:06 AM

NewYorkerFilter: my friend is trying to identify a feature about a writer trying to contact her father's rival.

From the friend: "I've been trying to find this New Yorker piece I remember reading about a scientist in which the scientist wouldn't respond to the writer's messages, and the writer (a woman) wonders if maybe it's because the scientist disliked her father, who was also a famous scientist in the same field with opposing views. She leaves a series of increasingly desperate messages, but only after she gets her editor involved does the scientist agree to talk to her. Would have ran between 2005ish and 2010ish. (Possibly might have been in Harper's or The Atlantic.)"

posted by blazingunicorn to Society & Culture (4 answers total)

Was this fiction or nonfiction, do you know?
posted by mskyle at 9:12 AM on March 24, 2015

Response by poster: Nonfiction, and he also clarified that it may have been related to "astrophysics," but that search term is proving fruitless.
posted by blazingunicorn at 9:15 AM on March 24, 2015

Best answer: Was it Rivka Galchen's piece "Disaster Aversion" from the October 2009 issue of Harper's? In it, she writes about trying to contact Dr. Ross Hoffman, who knew her father, meteorologist Tzvi Gal-Chen (the relevant section starts on page 4).
posted by neushoorn at 10:41 AM on March 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Yes, that's it - a million thanks!!
posted by blazingunicorn at 10:58 AM on March 24, 2015