5.4 Katherine Johnson and Euler's Method

Katherine was my Aunt....and my hero.....thank you for recognizing her accomplishments.

Hidden Figures is one of the best movies Hollywood has ever produced.

Wow. At ~6:00 he's talking about my mom. She calculated ballistic trajectories at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland during WWII.

RIP Katherine Johnson, a remarkable lady.

The professor who taught us differential equations in about 1976 started his working life as a human computer in our university. He was an amazing man, he taught us two differential equations courses without referring to notes or to a book in class. He was in his 70’s at that time.

Its sad that until the printing of this book and making of this movie the history of these important women went unknown to the general public.

A brilliant mathematican. She should have been recognized! May she rest in Power and Arise with the Ancestors! Thank you for your contributions! You are history and a Shero!!!

Actually the book in the movie was on one computer language, FORTRAN, which is literally short for FORmula TRANslation. It was the first computer language I learned in Engineering School. These women made the success of the NASA Space program possible. Unfortunately for humanity, we have lost the real women the main characters were portraying. May we never forget their incredible achievements. On a lighter note, I truly love that line when Costner says "For you it is". That one line elevates her above everyone else in that scene. Stellar!

Professor Garfinkel, this video is wonderful! It's well put together. Kudos. Katherine Johnson was a wonderful gal. Euler's method, like sewing - one stitch at a time. I'm glad that you posted this lecture. Best Always!

I watched this movie just yesterday. Such powerfull and emotional movie.

This video and movie , got me through a lot of my early calculus classes as it was so Inspiring. It came out when I was taking calculus 2 in the summer and inspired me to push through . NASA is a dream job to this day because of those women , the book , and film I watched . Fun fact Dorothy ( Octavia Spencer’s character ) - her sons also became engineers ! I’d be an awe if ever meet any one of these women .

Thank you for this short but very informative session. Really gives a nice reality supplement to the amazing film

Crazy, we were doing some of these trajectories in HS. I didnt know people did all this for a living.

"Computing machines" Yep. I was using those in the early 1970s while going to school at Control Data Institute in Miami. The IBM 360 (which means it had a storage capability of 360K or 360,000 bytes (you're cell phone has about 140 GB) was about the size of a car and had to be in a room that was around 60-50 degrees F. We froze in there when using the machine. Had to use punch cards to program the machine in COBOL, FORTRAN or Assembler (in essence, binary code). What a difference with today's computers!

Wow. I love hearing truth. This was good to hear.

It is amazing how a 300 year old formula solved a problem that modern math couldn't

Katherine Johnson...I'm sorry, The Great Katherine Johnson even looked and spoke like a math teacher. IDK. Maybe they all looked and talked like her, but she reminds me of every female math teacher I had up till grad school. The way...she spoke...in short phrases...were all very similar to the structure of an equation...and always...seemed like...it followed the rhythm of how her mind was working at the time. Mathematics and music are twins.

I learned Euler's Method when I went back to school, took math for non-majors and feel in love with it. I actually like math especially algebra but hated "word problems". Euler's Method freed something in me to get them. I literally jumped when Taraji said Euler's Method in the movie cuz I knew what she was talking about and everyone looked at me — this little Black woman. How could she/me know what that was? LOL! I really appreciate this perspective and how he broke things down both scientifically/mathematically while related it back to what happened historically as portrayed in the movie. Hated that squeaky marker on the glass board. Had me all cringed up. LOL!!!

Thanks a.lot for the video, I just watch the movie for the 3rd time, and decided to check on the accuracy on the Euler's method scene... I am far from being a Math perso, did it ok at school... Still was impressed by all the problems and situations described in the movie... Thanks again...

As of the date that I watched this video, there were actually 2 people that gave this a “thumbs down”. This basically proves the premise that you can’t get 100% of the people to approve of anything.