In this chapter of the book, Beyer emphasizes the beginning of Grace Hopper and how she became a key role in technology. It all started with her being born to a mathematician and a life insurance executive that resided in New York. After High School, Hopper went to Yale to pursue a degree in mathematics and physics. Of her graduating class, she was 1/396 individuals to graduate with a Ph. D in mathematics and the first woman to do so at Yale. Beyer explains the rest of her knowledge in a chronological order that ends with her programming The Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator so that it could compute the arctangent to 23 decimal points.
This chapter would help me because it is very informative as to what Hopper did and how she contributed methods that are used in today’s Navy. Not only does it inform the reader on that, but it also informs us on who she worked alongside. People like Richard Bloch who was an electrician that helped Grace understand the wiring better. As a young woman pursuing a degree in computer science, this chapter really pushed me to do my best and try to make a difference in the technology world. When things got hard for Grace, she didn’t give up, but tried her hardest to complete that task that eventually led her to new discoveries. “Hidden Figures” no more–Katherine Johnson and Boyd wrote a magazine article about Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Vaughn and how they distributed to the concepts of space traveling. The information provided seems to say without these three women, and many more, there would not be any space starveling. Boyd shares his appreciation of these women in the article and gives them their credit by explaining what they did and how it affected the world then, and how we still use their techniques now. These women were seen as a power group that led to the availability of space traveling.
When I was in High School, my teachers used to hate giving us group work because they believed that only one person did the work while the others just sat there and looked. When I found this article that gave credit to a GROUP of women, I was very excited! Not only were these women, but they were a group, who did something extraordinary. Without these GROUPS of women, who knows what technology and space traveling would be like? I honestly don’t think the world would be like it is because Russia would have been so far ahead which could have led to other unnecessary wars.
In this article, Haynes is sharing the story of African-American women who all contributed to the phenomena of going to the moon. One person they really highlight is Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who sent the first astronaut to the moon. The article shares the importance of a women being able to do such a thing by sharing trials black women had to face during that time. It goes from when she was born, where she went to college, and how she started her career in math. It ends with an analysis of Hidden Figures, a movie based off her life. This source is helpful to my research because it proves how women had to do so much to be seen in the field of technology. Not only will this be a good point to point out, but this article made me realize that there are even more women who still haven’t gotten the recognition they deserved almost 40 years later. Although we still struggle with this problem today, mathematicians such as Katherine Johnson was fortunate enough to get the recognition that they deserve. As years go by, the percentage of women in technology fluctuates and it shouldn’t be that way.
Keating offers information about Katherine Johnson and some of her famous quotes. Taking a formal approach to this information, Keating lays out the information in sequential order to help the reader understand how Johnson was able to accomplish something so big in a short amount of time. This is a short article, but it still helps me make my point that technology wouldn’t be as advanced had it not been to hard driven women. Had it not been to Katherine Johnson and her accurate calculations of gravity etc., John Glenn would not have been able to orbit earth so we could catch up with the Soviet Union and that was very important back then. Not only did Katherine set the pavement for astronauts, she also gave women someone to look up to.
Headrick article gives information about the life of Grace Hopper and how her hard work, dedication, and positive attitude landed her to be a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Grace Hopper translated math into a more English- speaking subject. Without her distributions and explanations of math, it would only be able to be done by the computers. Hopper set the tone for software engineering and came up with the term of ‘debugging’, which is a term all software engineers and computer scientist use.
Grace Hopper being in my research paper is inevitable. Other than Augusta Ada King-Lovelace, she is known as the first computer scientist. Having read this article, I wouldn’t have known that Hopper was the women who came up with the term ‘debugging’, which is a term that software developers and compilers use. I also wouldn’t have known that she translated math into a more understanding subject. Im currently enrolled into Calculus 2 and if it used to more complicated than that, then I strongly believe that Hopper deserves the recognition of being a contributor to the technology world. Orlando explains the story of Grace and how she was dedicated to her studies in math. With her dedication, she was able to get a Ph. D in math, write the first programming language, work in the Navy, and etc. The article gives us the story of how she graduated Yale which led the way for her to work under many companies. When working for the Navy, she was responsible for programming a monster computer with we now know as COBOL. COBOL is the first programming language that was written by Grace and used in the Navy.
This article is a great example of hard work and dedication paying off. Grace Hopper is known as the first computer programmer who always challenged herself into doing better things. It is said that when she was to get bored with her job, she would find a totally different job from the one she already had. I guess that explains why she went from going to school, to being a teacher, and eventually going to the Navy where she help write the first computer programming language COBOL. Moral of the story is when something becomes too easy, find something else that’ll challenge you and the results could leave you speechless.
This book illustrates the life of Jean Jennings contributions to the technology world. Todd’s use of primary pictures along with definitions made it easier for the reader to put a face with a name and to see how the times have changed in technology. Todd offers the readers pictures of women working as human computers and the devices they were working on with a caption explaining each device. Similar to Grace, what sparked Jean’s interest in working with computers was the Pearl Harbor attack, which caused many men to work in the Navy or Military. Because of this shift, women had to work on devices that helped calculate the trajectories of fire, which was what the men did before the attack. Jean helped program one of the first computers which was the ENIAC.
Although this book seemed a little childish at first, when I got to reading, there was a lot of information to take in. The book went into detail regarding where Jean lived, her family, her interest, and her education and knowledge. I found it interesting that Hopper and Jean both had a good amount of family that entered the Military and Navy after Japan had attacked us in the Pearl Harbor. This book is going to help me compare the works of the women and how they went through the same circumstances.
