Hidden Figures

One of the best films I have seen for ages, Hidden Figures (2016) tells the story of the computers whose calculations gave the early space-race a significant boost. In those days, a ‘computer’ wasn’t a PC or a laptop, but a human mathematician.

The three heroines of Hidden Figures are Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson. In the early days of their employment at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, when it was part of National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the facilities were racially segregated, and the characters are shown overcoming the systemic barriers put in place by the practice of segregation. When NACA was absorbed into National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the facilities were desegregated.

Eventually it all comes to a head when Katherine is forced to run half a mile across the campus to the segregated bathroom, and Kevin Costner’s character smashes the ‘Colored Bathroom’ sign. This didn’t actually happen in real life, as in reality she just used the nearest bathroom and got away with it, but it’s a visually satisfying shorthand for the dismantling of systemic oppression.

Halfway through the film, human computers are replaced by electronic computers, and Dorothy Vaughan teaches herself and her staff FORTRAN so that they won’t be made redundant. She had a 28 year career at Langley, and was the first African-American woman to hold a supervisory post there.

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson is a mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. space-flights. During her 35-year career at NASA and NACA, she used her exceptional ability to perform complex calculations of trajectories, launch windows and emergency return paths for space-flights, the space shuttle, and a planned mission to Mars. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Mary Jackson was initially a mathematician working alongside Dorothy Vaughan and Katherine Johnson, but then took advanced engineering classes and became NASA's first Black female engineer in 1958. To qualify as an engineer, she needed graduate-level qualifications in physics and mathematics. She had to petition the City of Hampton to allow her to attend the courses, which were at an all-white school. She analyzed data from wind tunnel experiments and aircraft flight experiments at Langley. The results improved the scientific understanding of air flow, thrust and drag forces.

These days, people tend to think of computing as a male-dominated field, but in the early days, it was predominantly a female area of employment.

I find it incredibly inspiring that these women overcame all sorts of obstacles to become top mathematicians, engineers, and computer scientists.

Hedy Lamarr: an unlikely geek

In celebration of Ada Lovelace day 2010, here's a biography of someone you might not think of as a scientist and inventor:

Hedy Lamarr (born 1913)
Radio communications system

The Viennese-born femme fatale of 1930s and 1940s films is a lot more than just a pretty face.

The actress, whose real name is Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, immigrated to the United States during the early years of World War II. She is best known for sultry roles in such movies as "Ecstasy" and "Samson and Delilah," but she also coinvented a remote-controlled, anti-jamming communications system, a major contribution to U.S. defense technology.

According to Bethesda resident Anne Macdonald, author of a book about American women inventors and a patent-holder herself for a knitting machine, Lamarr learned about designs for military technologies while married to a wealthy Austrian arms dealer for three years. Soon after Nazi Germany invaded Austria in 1938, she left her husband and went to London, where Louis B. Mayer of MGM Studios changed her name and signed her up as his company's newest screen sensation.

In 1942, Lamarr and composer George Antheil received a patent for the communications system, which employed a feature known as frequency hopping. A radio signal, such as those used to direct torpedoes, would "hop" from one broadcast frequency to another at certain intervals. Therefore, if a receiver was not synchronized to receive the entire signal, the signal could not be "jammed" nor deciphered.

Lamarr's invention did not fit MGM's image of her as a glamorous movie star, and her creative side was a well-kept secret in Hollywood. Still, Lamarr was so passionate about helping the war effort that she seriously considered abandoning acting to join the National Inventors Council full-time.

Lamarr's system was never used during World War II, but long after her patent expired, the Sylvania Corp. adopted and further developed the idea.

Source: Female inventors: Mothers of invention

The annual German Inventors' Day is held on her birthday, 9th November:

This lady is Hedy Lamarr, a Hollywood diva and inventor.
She is the prototype for the everyday life an inventor, not because she was an Edison, but simply because she was someone that tried to realise her idea.
She did not become rich or famous from her idea (as an actress she was already). Her invention however, the frequency hopping process is still in daily use and an integral process in our mobile phones.
Her birthday, 9th November, has been taken to represent all inventors and this Inventors' Day.

My other Finding Ada blogposts:
Lisa Barone
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Kate and the Angels of Xara

Kate and the Angels of Xara (by Brendan Hanley) is a coming-of-age story taking place in the near future. The heroine, Kate, becomes an astronaut, and grows up in the process. The story was apparently inspired by the author's admiration for brainy sassy tomboys (the kind of gals we at the Bluestocking also admire).

I enjoyed the contrast between the dangers of space and the dangers that one can encounter on Earth. I also liked the descriptions of landscape. I thought the level of technical detail in the space scenes was rather satisfying, because it really made it feel like I was there, and thinking through the dangers and the technical details makes the reader feel like a real astronaut for a bit. The fortune-telling scene was exciting, and I really liked the way it was handled - the initial scepticism giving way to fear that it might actually be true, and Sunita's reaction. I'm agog to see what happens next. I also liked the mixture of real and invented Tarot cards (rather like in T S Eliot's poem The Wasteland). I also thought the scene where the Angels rescued the boy Otto Muller from space was great - I was on tenterhooks to know if they would all get back into the spaceship safely, which shows that the characters were real enough to be cared about by the reader.

The scene where Kate watches the shuttle launch was well written, and I thought her response to it (and that of the other people present) was very believable. Another scene describes one of the characters cutting herself; I don't think I've ever seen a description of cutting in a book before; it was really well described, as it's how I imagine it would come about.

It's funny that I have written more in response to the scenes on Earth - perhaps because they resonate with experiences that I have had - rather than the scenes in space, which were also really good, but outside my experience. But the space scenes were good too - I enjoyed the bit where Kate gave Earl the controls of the ship for re-entry, that was great. Also the stunning views of Earth from from space, and the geographical detail about the Niger delta, and the really poignant bit at the end where they see the Earth and the Moon receding away from them as they set off for Mars.

It was really noticeable how much more confident and fluid the author's writing is after the first third of the book, once it gets into space; but also the emotions of family members and Angels are handled well and realistically. I also think the pace of the writing (and the handling of conversations) was better, and about right, in the latter two-thirds. I noticed a few typos here and there, but the actual writing is excellent - very clear, and I never had to go back and re-read anything to make sense of it.

For me, the major theme that emerges from the book is the tension between life and death -- wanting to live life to the full and wring every last drop of experience out of it, whilst being aware that we will die. I thought that this was explored really well. The only other book where this theme is explored at all (that I know of) is The Way of Wyrd by Brian Bates, and even there it's only touched on briefly, whereas I think this book is an extended meditation on it, and brings out the tension and the contrast, and the implications for how one should live one's life, really well. There's a great poem by Mary Oliver, The Summer Day, which includes the line "How will you spend your one wild and precious life?" It seems that the Angels of Xara have answered this question for themselves, and live in an awareness that each day might be their last, and therefore live it to the full, whilst everyone around them has not answered that question, and that's one of the reasons why the Angels make them so uncomfortable.

Women inventors

The Women Inventors page at About.com has a huge selection of biographies and resources.

Women Inventors A to Z
Women Inventors A-Z the biographies - inventions and photos of inventors from Randi Altschul to Mary Walton.

Randi Altschul

Randice-Lisa Altschul invented the world's first disposable cell phone.

Dr. Betsy Ancker-Johnson

Dr. Betsy Ancker-Johnson was the third woman inventor elected to the National Academy oF engineering.

Mary Anderson

Mary Anderson invented the windshield wiper. Anderson was issued a patent for the wipers in 1905.

Virginia Apgar

Apgar invented a newborn scoring system or "Apgar Score" for assessing the health of newborn infants.

Barbara Askins

Developed a totally new way of processing film.

Patricia Bath

The first African American woman doctor to receive a patent for a medical invention.

Miriam E. Benjamin

Ms. Benjamin was the second black woman inventor to receive a patent. She received a patent for an invention she called a "Gong and Signal Chair for Hotels".

Patricia Billings

Patricia Billings invented a indestructible and fireproof building material called Geobond®.

Katherine Blodgett

Invented the non-reflecting glass.

Bessie Blount

Blount invented a device to help disabled people eat with less difficulty.

Sarah Boone

An improvement to the ironing board was invented by African American Sarah Boone on April 26, 1892.

Rachel Fuller Brown

Rachel Brown co-invented Nystatin, the world's first useful antifungal antibiotic.

Josephine Garis Cochran

In 1886, Josephine Cochran invented the first practical dishwasher.

Martha J. Coston

Martha Coston invented a pyrotechnic signaling system known as maritime signal flares.

Dianne Croteau

Invented Actar 911, the CPR mannequin.

Marie Curie

Marie Curie also known as Madame Curie discovered radium and furthered x-ray technology.

Marion Donovan

The convenient disposable diaper was invented by New Yorker Marion Donovan in 1950.

Gertrude Belle Elion

Elion invented the leukemia-fighting drug 6-mercaptopurine, drugs that facilitated kidney transplants and other drugs for the treatment of cancer and leukemia.

Edith Flanigen

Flanigen was the inventor of a petroleum refining method and is considered one of the most inventive chemists of all time.

Helen Free

Free was the inventor of the home diabetes test.

Sally Fox

Sally Fox invented naturally-colored cotton.

Frances Gabe

Gabe invented the "Self Cleaning House".

Lillian Gilbreth

Lillian Moller Gilbreth was an inventor, author, industrial engineer, industrial psychologist, and mother of twelve children.

Sarah E. Goode

Sarah Goode was the first African American women to receive a U.S. patent.

Bette Nesmith Graham

Graham invented liquid paper, also known as White-Out™.

Temple Grandin

Temple Grandin invented livestock-handling devices.

KK Gregory

KK Gregory is the ten-year old inventor of Wristies®.

Ruth Handler

The Barbie doll was invented in 1959 by Ruth Handler.

Elizabeth Lee Hazen

Elizabeth Hazen co-invented Nystatin, the world's first useful antifungal antibiotic.

Beulah Henry

All told, Henry made about 110 inventions and holds 49 patents.

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin

Hodgkin used x-rays to find the structural layouts of atoms and to discover the overall molecular shape of over 100 molecules including: penicillin, vitamin B-12, vitamin D and insulin.

Krisztina Holly

Co-invented the telephony software called Visual Voice.

Erna Schneider Hoover

Hoover invented the computerized telephone switching system.

Grace Hopper

Grace Hopper was a computer inventor best known for the Mark computer series.

Mary Phelps Jacob

Mary Phelps Jacob invented the bra.

Amanda Theodosia Jones

Jones re-invented American food production by inventing vacuum packed canning.

Marjorie Stewart Joyner

Joyner invented a permanent wave machine that would allow a hairdo to stay set for days.

Anna Keichline

Architect, Anna Keichline created inventions for the home.

Mary Kies: Patenting Pioneer

Kies was the first women to receive a U.S. patent on May 15, 1809.

Gabriele Knecht

Patented the Forward Sleeve design for creating clothing.

Margaret Knight

Margaret Knight was an employee in a paper bag factory when she invented a new machine part to make square bottoms for paper bags. Knight can be considered the mother of the grocery bag, she founded the Eastern Paper Bag Company in 1870.

Stephanie Louise Kwolek

Kwolek invented a material five times stronger than steel called Kevlar.

Hedy Lamarr

Lamarr was a movie star and inventor.

Ada Lovelace

Wrote a scientific paper in 1843 that anticipated the development of computer software artificial intelligence and computer music.

Sybilla Masters - First American Woman Inventor

Masters was the first American female inventor in recorded history, but no doubt women have been inventing since the dawn of time without the deserved recognition.

Ann Moore

Invented the Snugli baby carrier.

Krysta Morlan

Krysta Morlan invented a device that relieves the irritation caused by wearing a cast - the cast cooler.

Ellen Ochoa

Ochoa invented optical analysis systems and was the world's first Hispanic female astronaut.

Alice Parker

Alice Parker invented a new and improved gas heating furnace.

Betty Rozier and Lisa Vallino

Rozier and Vallino, a mother and daughter invention team, invented the intravenous catheter shield.

Patsy Sherman

Patsy Sherman invented Scotchgard™.

Valerie Thomas

Received a patent in 1980 for inventing an illusion transmitter.

Ann Tsukamoto

The co-patenter of a process to isolate the human stem cell.

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was considered the "Moses of the Civil War" for her work on the underground railroads.

Madame Walker

Madame Walker was a St. Louis washerwoman-turned-entrepreneur, who in 1905 invented a method to soften and smooth African American hair.

Mary Walton

Walton invented several anti-pollution devices during the Industrial Revolution.

Carol Wior

Invented the Slimsuit, a slimming swimsuit.

Alan Turing petition

The Bluestocking has already identified Alan Turing as one of our heroes. Now it's time for ardent bluestockings to put our money where our mouths are, and sign up to the petition for a public apology to recognise that he was hounded to his untimely death by a bigoted establishment.

The details from the petition's creator state:

Alan Turing was the greatest computer scientist ever born in Britain. He laid the foundations of computing, helped break the Nazi Enigma code and told us how to tell whether a machine could think.

He was also gay. He was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated as a 'cure', and took his own life, aged 41.

The British Government should apologize to Alan Turing for his treatment and recognize that his work created much of the world we live in and saved us from Nazi Germany. And an apology would recognize the tragic consequences of prejudice that ended this man's life and career.

I have long been an admirer of Mr Turing and urge you to sign this petition without delay.

Sixth Sense

Pranav Mistry has developed absolutely amazingly awesome wearable technology, called the Sixth Sense. It's a device that can project data onto stuff you are looking at; like Amazon ratings of books you are browsing in a bookshop, or whether the toilet-roll in the supermarket is environmentally sound. Go and watch the video, it's quite mind-boggling really (and no brain implants are required - yet). More information is available at his website.

A commenter on the TED site points out that you could use it in museums to learn more about the artefacts. It could have scary applications, like seeing data about people (though it would be an interesting ice-breaker at parties). But that is the case with all new technology.

The aspect of this that beats being able to browse the web from your mobile phone is that it selects the information you need instead of you having to searchfor it; so it knows you're looking at a book or a newspaper and reacts accordingly. How? How does it know?

Anyway, in short, I want one of those.

Happy Ada Day

Ada Lovelace

In celebration of Ada Lovelace, nearly two thousand bloggers have signed up to a pledge to blog about women in technology.

She is mainly known for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. She is today appreciated as the "first programmer" since she was writing programs—that is, manipulating symbols according to rules—for a machine that Babbage had not yet built. She also foresaw the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on these capabilities.

There is a big list of women computer scientists on Wikipedia, so it was difficult to choose, but I have chosen Wendy Hall, Professor of Computing Science at the University of Southampton, because I have actually seen her give a keynote at a conference, and because I was born in Southampton.

She is also a founding director of the Web Science Research Initiative, and is interested in human-computer interaction:

Wendy Hall

Her research interests now include the development of web technologies (particularly the Semantic Web), hypermedia systems and link services, advanced knowledge technologies, digital libraries, decentralized information systems, and human computer interaction. She has published over 350 papers in areas such as hypermedia, multimedia, digital libraries, and distributed information systems.

The UK Fawcett Campaign for equality between men and women named her as an Inspiring Woman in 2005, and the UK Research Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology selected her as one of six world-class Women of Outstanding Achievement in SET in March 2006. In October 2006 she was the first non-US woman to receive the Anita Borg Award for Technical Leadership.

She is particularly prominent as a strong and vocal advocate for women’s opportunities in SET and for the need to ensure that girls are not excluded from participation in science and engineering careers. In her research and her public life she has sought to ensure that women are equal beneficiaries of technological advance, and her example of achievement and dedication has made her a distinguished role model for women.

Happy Ada Day to Wendy and all geeks of whatever gender!

You can read about more women in technology at the Ada Lovelace Day Collection.

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Women pilots

I've just been tipped off about the existence of this splendid website about women pilots in Soviet Russia by a kind gentleman called Gryphon over at the Brass Goggles forum.

Intriguingly, the pilots who flew at night were called the Night Witches.  Above is a photo of one of their planes.

Another bluestocking

Bath graduate Bijal Thakore was announced the winner of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) prize for her service in the engineering sector at a recent prestigious award ceremony.

Congratulations to Bijal for her excellent achievement.

She also works for Lego and is on the board of directors of the Planetary Society.  

Thakore also works as a technical consultant for a number of global clients, including working with LEGO System A/S as a Global Client Development Officer for LEGO Play for Business.

Representing the activities of young people internationally as a liaison for the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, Thakore is also a member of the Special Advisory Committee to the International Astronautical Federation on Space and Society.  Thakore’s goal is to help make humanity a multi-planet species.

Past positions include serving as a Teaching Associate for the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, where she furthered her interdisciplinary research in Robotics and In-Situ Resource Utilization for space exploration.  She also worked for the X PRIZE Foundation, where she devised prize concepts to bring radical breakthroughs in attempts to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges such as eradicating poverty and providing clean drinking water to all.

Completely awesome.