"Wielding little more than a pencil, a slide rule and one of the finest mathematical minds in the country, Mrs. Johnson, whose death at 101 was announced on Monday by NASA, calculated the precise trajectories that would let Apollo 11 land on the moon in 1969 and, after Neil Armstrong’s history-making moonwalk, let it return to Earth."
The quality of work, done by hand, is just staggering when you think of the consequences that could have transpired if mistakes had been made.
According to Hidden Figures (which to the best of my knowledge is quite accurate in representing Katherine Johnson), she actually hand checked most if not every calculation performed by the digital computers and often found miscalculations due to programming errors.
Digital computers were in their infancy - at one point in that brilliant movie the critical calculations are passed through the digital computer twice and got different answers. Katherine was asked to repeat the calculations and her result was then used.
The movie also shows Dorothy Vaughan teaching themselves how to program those first machines. Remember that pretty much noone had any programming experience, and there are still pitfalls today for people doing science calculations on a computer.
This was dramatized in Hidden Figures but apparently based on fact: [1]
> As a computer, she calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Even after NASA began using electronic computers, John Glenn requested that she personally recheck the calculations made by the new electronic computers before his flight aboard Friendship 7 – the mission on which he became the first American to orbit the Earth.
Up until the last 40 years of human history almost everything was calculated and drawn by hand. Every building, machine, road, bridge, airplane, ship, and everything else was designed by hand with pen and paper. Given the times doing what they did would not be unexpected, i.e. doing a good job by hand. This doesn't take away from the work and accomplishment. But I see it more as a job well done then something truly out of the ordinary for the times.
Digital desktop calculators were a thing since late 1960s, and helped a lot with these hand-driven calculations.
They were large boxes with nixie tubes, the size of a modern midi-tower PC, only horizontal. They were limited to relatively simple operations, like square root or ln. They were more precise than a slide rule, though.
It must be weird to go from being completely forgotten for your contributions to the moon landing to becoming famous, the main character in a major Hollywood movie, and have a building at NASA named after you.
My Dad and I watched 'Hidden Figures' a couple of weekends ago. Its such a great movie. To think that this one person was able to do that floored me.
I told my Dad how lucky we are to be born with various abilities that we then nurture and develop. The sky's the limit when we do the things we were "born" to do.
This lady's mind was really meant to doing such calculations. So good!
I'm not sure if she wanted that attention, but she deserved it. I'm sure, being 97 years old and now getting famous isn't that bad. I can't imagine people taking too many photographs and interviews of here.
It's a great movie. I read a bit about her afterwards. One cool thing is that some of the parts that I assumed were made up by Hollywood to heighten the drama (like Neil Armstrong say "I'm not launching unless she does the calculations") weren't fabricated. That actually happened
i also enjoyed the movie, but there was a bit too much creative license applied to push an agenda (for my taste). for something based on a real person and real events, bending the truth for dramatic effect does not sit well with me.
I don't think there is such a social contract. As far as I can tell, the only two things Bohemian Rhapsody got right was a) Freddie Mercury was gay, and b) Queen played at Live Aid. One of the villains in the Titanic movie in real life was a hero.
i encourage the downvoters to actually read the wiki entry. some of the central points of drama revolve around an atmosphere and conditions that did not exist at nasa when these events took place. e.g.
"I didn't feel the segregation at NASA, because everybody there was doing research. You had a mission and you worked on it, and it was important to you to do your job ... and play bridge at lunch. I didn't feel any segregation. I knew it was there, but I didn't feel it."
the primary character clearly states that there was no feeling of segregation, yet the movie centrally revolves around her direct experience of blatant, overt racisim.
imo, the story is amazing/inspirational on its own without this intentional misrepresentation.
Your conclusion is wrong - she admits in the quote you referenced that segregation was there. She does not say it didn't affect her, she says she didn't feel it (as in let it affect her own behavior, cloud her mind, react to it, etc).
To my recollection (I could be wrong it's been years), the movie didn't focus on her feelings about segregation, it focused on the actual segregation and the effects of that segregation on her daily life (i.e. obstacles that would have been in her way), which is distinctly different from her feelings about said segregation and obstacles...which is what she's referring to in the quote.
The book actually touches on this:
"She knew just as well as any other black person the tax levied upon them because of their color. But she didn’t feel it in the same way. She wished it away, willed it out of existence inasmuch as her daily life was concerned.”
MANY members of different marginalized groups deliberately choose this outlook as a method of self preservation in an attempt to minimize the very real emotional, physical, and spiritual toll created by these -isms. Quite a bit of research on the topic if it's something that interests you. But their choice not to acknowledge the source of these obstacles (i.e. racism) doesn't mean it's not there and it doesn't mean there aren't significant challenges...
I think it's pretty unfortunate so many people, particularly women and people of color, have gone unrecognized for their accomplishments in their lifetime. It's somewhat heartening to me that she was, however late, recognized properly within her lifetime for her incredible contributions.
Wow, bold courageous move there. Making a throwaway just to challenge someone pointing out an effect of racism. Everyone thinks you're so incredible. /s
I'm so sorry. I'm just supposed to believe that "so many people, particularly women and people of color, have gone unrecognized for their accomplishments in their lifetime" when Katherine Johnson and Margaret Hamilton are the only NASA ground staff that I can name. Is there anything else you want me to believe?
I think he has a point though and I don't disparage elevating people like her because she broke gender and racial barriers in addition to making great contributions.
But it was a pretty huge team effort and you will never know of that boring white middle age man who did equally as important engineering or mathematical work.
There is not necessarily wrong with it but it is pretty funny when I think about famous programmers my mind goes to Ada Lovelace, Margret Hamilton, Grace Hopper, Denis Ritchie and Linus Torvalds.
All great programmers and I know others exists but those are the ones I think I hear the most about I think.
I do know of Mae Jemison and Rosalind Franklin. Mae Jemison and Sally Ride, and Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick have a similar number of page views on Wikipedia, so I think they are all generally known about as well as each other. Maurice Wilkins less so.
In fact, it is you asking people here to believe in your odd and unfortunate worldview.
You are obviously enormously invested in completely ignoring social conditions women and people of color overcame to do what they did.
Of all things, in a thread on the occasion of her death - for a few, what we get is anger and indignation in reading about this woman's accomplishments. Think about that.
A few years ago, a friend of mine summarized Margaret Hamilton's contributions to computing; the post went pretty viral (it sat atop this very site), enough that some other people made copy-cat posts. A couple years later she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I don't think the two events were disconnected...
Rest in peace, and thanks for the inspiration of what a dedicated, hard working person can achieve. I'm glad she got to receive the recognition she deserved in her life.
I wish there was some sort of official guidelines on when the black bar is appropriate. There is no doubt that Mrs. Johnson helped accelerate the field of computer science and legitimized its existence, as not just a branch of mathematics, but a whole new field on its own.
The bigger question is, is that what the black bar is for?
She was a pioneer in civil rights and advancing social mores. There's no question she has made great contributions to humanity. But in computing, she was one of numerous analysts performing calculations as part of a massive, sprawling government program. Millions of engineers, scientists, and mathematicians have died since and we honor very few of them. I admire Johnson enormously but her work in math is not what distinguishes her.
I'm curious why you think her work in math is separate and distinct from her work in advancing equality? I think her mathematics work alone distinguishes her but even if you don't, why do you not view her social contributions to the field as worthy of recognition?
Jackie Robinson was a great baseball player but his contributions to the game extend far beyond how he performed on the field.
The guidance I've always seen is that the black bar is added "when someone important to the HN community dies". And I agree with the commenter you're replying to, Katherine Johnson and her work certainly qualify as important to the HN community.
The quality of work, done by hand, is just staggering when you think of the consequences that could have transpired if mistakes had been made.