Career Profile: From Physics Student to Independent Scientist and Business Owner

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy has compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers, planetary scientists, etc. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

October 3, 2024 is National Women-Owned Business Day. Below is our interview with Sally Seaver, a space scientist, book author, business owner, scholar, and polymath. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California at Irvine and has had a self-proclaimed unconventional career path that was shaped by strong curiosity, courage, determination, confidence that solutions exist, and entrepreneurial spirit. Sally’s curiosity has taken her theoretical research in multiple directions, including investigating what force opposes gravity and understanding the initial conditions of Earth. She is the author of Mass Vortex Theory; Development of a Solar System From Atoms To Star and the accompanying website.

Tell us a little about your background.
My academic journey is very unconventional. As an undergraduate, I took Conceptual Physics as a breadth requirement, and I enjoyed learning about how the physical world works including the fundamental forces. It seemed weird to me (not in keeping with balance and aesthetics) that there would not be a balancing force to the attractive force of gravity. Then, I considered that if there was an opposing force, where would it come from? I reasoned that gravity is a force associated with mass. What is the opposite of mass? I reasoned that space seemed to fulfill this opposite. At any rate, it was something to investigate. 

As I attempted to write my ideas about space, I learned that space is defined academically as the set of all possible points. I visited several different professors during office hours to understand more about this and I was told that countably many points do not provide spatial extension, but uncountably many points do. To me, this is unacceptable magic! So, I set out to learn more about the assumptions of math and physics, resulting in a year-long course on mathematical logic. By the time that I concluded my bachelor degrees in Physics and Mathematics, I concluded that academic science had some problematic standards preventing productive advances:

• Defining space as the set of all points when a point itself has no distance or direction—distance and direction being critical for space

• The mathematical handling of infinitely many things using only the concepts “countably-many” and “uncountably-many”

• Major problems with Set Theory and its role as the foundation of Math, especially when Math provides the rigor (and language) for all science.

I learned that my curiosity is super powerful and it ended up taking me towards my impractical path. After earning my undergraduate degree, I worked temp jobs and did my research at night, Saturdays and holidays. In 1994, as a single parent, I was able to complete the first version of my big paper, “Working Together on Knowledge”, which to my way of thinking provides a better foundation for creating and developing formal scientific theories so that they are clear and consistent. As a certified producer for Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN) cable access station 23, I created a three-part show to present my research up to that point in October 2003.

Tell us about your research investigations.
In 2012, I watched a presentation about the Mayan calendar, which sparked my curiosity about reference dates. After doing some research and paying a physics professor to consult, I decided that I should write a book. My book is called Continental Cataclysm Theory. Friendly reviews found some problems with my assumptions about the initial conditions of the Earth, but I was not deterred. 

As I set out to explain the initial conditions of the Earth, I developed a new theory of planet formation, star formation and galaxy formation which is captured in my book, Mass Vortex Theory; Development of a Solar System From Atoms To Star (2019). This book is the first of five books in my Continental Cataclysm Theory Series. A distinguishing feature of my theory of planet formation is that every planet starts with an ice shell. Each of the inner planets has lost theirs, but the outer planets still have theirs. The goal of the Juno spacecraft, in orbit around Jupiter since 2016, is to explore the origin and evolution of the planet. Juno’s science themes include its origin and its interior structure in addition to two other themes. My model of Jupiter’s interior may be able to  contribute to the science themes of Juno.

Tell us a little about your business.
For 10 years after graduating from college, I worked as a contractor for companies such as Digital Equipment Corp (DEC), AT&T Computer Systems, ADP, and Fidelity Investments. I was able to take time off from 1994-1996 for full-time research. Then, I worked three years at MFS Investment Management doing desktop publishing and automation projects. In March of 2001, I left MFS to found my own company, Active Lightning. Work includes database publishing, custom software and ecommerce websites. Since 2018, the focus of Active Lightning has shifted to creating business-to-business [B2B] websites heavy on integration with relevant business systems - essentially, Active Lightning has pivoted from doing services work to being a software company with two proprietary products, Active Hub and ActiveTransfer. In 2021, I started working on developing an energy storage device, which was inspired by an online college course (edx.edu) in materials and discoveries from my space science work on Mass Vortex Theory. The patent is currently pending.

I also founded an ecommerce company, Egyptian Cotton TShirts LLC, in 2007, in order to take advantage of what I had learned from clients. You can read about that experience here.

What do you like most about your working environment?
I get to work from home on my own schedule and I get to work in the comfort of my home. I don’t lose productive time commuting.

However, being a small business owner is not very family-friendly. I am self-employed (my bill rate is $125 to $150 per hour), so when I don’t work, I don’t get paid. I work a lot for income and then spend other time working on my research. I often don't get enough sleep.

What advice do you have for achieving work-life balance (including having a family)?
Have your children early in your life while you have plenty of energy

What do you do for fun (e.g., hobbies, pastimes, etc.)?
A girl friend from my church who had done science reporting at Princeton University, put me in touch with a post-doc mathematician at MIT. He read some of my work, but he was not taking me seriously - and let’s face it, my work is a departure from established orthodoxy. I asked him point blank if he believed that a woman such as myself could make a significant contribution to mathematics. He confessed that he did not. I left that meeting and resolved that I would work with color and light by getting more involved in beading (as in necklaces and earrings). I go through phases of doing beading and oil painting as time allows. I also enjoy reading fun escapist novels or watching HGTV.

To learn more about Sally's specific career route, please contact her at sally_at_placeofunderstanding.com (replace the _at_ with @) and check out her website, Place of Understanding.