Hidden figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race
By: Lee Shetterly, Margot
Material type: BookPublisher: London : William Collins, c2016.Description: xviii, 346 p. ; 24 cm.ISBN: 9780008201326Subject(s): Women mathematicians -- United States -- Biography | African American women -- Biography | African American mathematicians -- Biography | Space race -- Biography | African American mathematicians | African American women | Employees | Space race | Women mathematiciansDDC classification: 510.92520973 LE HI Online resources: Location MapItem type | Home library | Call number | Status | Notes | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
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REGULAR | University of Wollongong in Dubai Main Collection | 510.92520973 LE HI (Browse shelf) | Available | July2018 | T0060226 |
, Shelving location: Main Collection Close shelf browser
510.76 SU MC McGraw-Hill's PMP certification mathematics : | 510.92 SC BR My brain is open : | 510.92242574 OX FO Oxford figures : | 510.92520973 LE HI Hidden figures : | 511 RO DI Discrete mathematics and its applications / | 511 RO DI Discrete mathematics and its applications / | 511.1 VE CO A course in discrete mathematical structures / |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-328) and index.
A door opens -- Mobilization -- Past is prologue -- The double V -- Manifest destiny -- War birds -- The duration -- Those who moved forward -- Breaking the barriers -- Home by the sea -- The area rule -- Serendipity -- Turbulence -- Angle of attack -- Young, gifted, and black -- What a difference a day makes -- Outer space -- With all deliberate speed -- Model behavior -- Degrees of freedom -- Out of the past, the future -- America is for everybody -- To boldly go.
Before John Glenn orbited the earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South's segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America's aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam's call, moving to Hampton Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Even as Virginia's Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley's all-black "West Computing" group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens."--