Hidden Figures
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- 159,00 kr
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- 159,00 kr
Publisher Description
Det er begyndelsen af 60’erne, og USA og Sovjetunionen er i gang med et intenst rumkapløb. I jagten på kompetent arbejdskraft finder NASA uanede talenter, blandt en gruppe afroamerikanske, kvindelige matematikere.
Selvom de har alle odds imod sig, lykkedes det alligevel disse såkaldte ‘menneskelige computere’, at blive en vigtig del af NASA’s rumfartsprogram. Kvindernes avancerede beregninger ligger bag én af amerikansk histories største bedrifter: at sende en astronaut ud i rummet.
Hidden Figures fortæller for første gang historien om Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson og Christine Darden. Vi følger dem gennem tre årtier, hvor de ikke kun ændrede deres egne liv, men også var med til at forandre USA’s fremtid.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shetterly, founder of the Human Computer Project, passionately brings to light the important and little-known story of the black women mathematicians hired to work as computers at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Va., part of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NASA's precursor). The first women NACA brought on took advantage of a WWII opportunity to work in a segregated section of Langley, doing the calculations necessary to support the projects of white male engineers. Shetterly writes of these women as core contributors to American success in the midst of a cultural "collision between race, gender, science, and war," teasing out how the personal and professional are intimately related. She celebrates the skills of mathematicians such as Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Hoover, whose brilliant work eventually earned them slow advancement but never equal footing. Shetterly collects much of her material directly from those who were there, using personal anecdotes to illuminate the larger forces at play. Exploring the intimate relationships among blackness, womanhood, and 20th-century American technological development, Shetterly crafts a narrative that is crucial to understanding subsequent movements for civil rights. A star-studded feature film based on Shetterly's book is due out in late 2016.
