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I found Katherine Johnson's calculations at NASA [video]
11–20 of 50 posts
Re: I found Katherine Johnson's calculations at NASA [video]
#12Link to the paper at NASA's NTRS: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19980227091
While the work itself is interesting, I'm also super curious to know how this was typeset. Did NASA have special typewriters with common math symbols, or go through some office with a Linotype or early digital typesetter, or something else?
Re: I found Katherine Johnson's calculations at NASA [video]
#13This work was done by a team of people. This is commonly misattributed to a single person.
Quoted post unavailable.
You don't seem to understand the history of the time. There are two names on the report. There was very little, if any, political support at that time for giving her "extra" credit. The more likely scenario is that she should have been first author. That sort of thing happened a lot.
Re: I found Katherine Johnson's calculations at NASA [video]
#14Link to the paper at NASA's NTRS: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19980227091
While the work itself is interesting, I'm also super curious to know how this was typeset. Did NASA have special typewriters with common math symbols, or go through some office with a Linotype or early digital typesetter, or something else?
I don't know how NASA did it, but in the 60s and 70s the IBM Selectric typewriters had those replaceable balls and you could swap one in with special math symbols on it.
https://www.duxburysystems.org/downloads/library/texas/apple...
https://mathoverflow.net/questions/19930/writing-papers-in-p...
Re: I found Katherine Johnson's calculations at NASA [video]
#15This work was done by a team of people. This is commonly misattributed to a single person.
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Re: I found Katherine Johnson's calculations at NASA [video]
#16Link to the paper at NASA's NTRS: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19980227091
While the work itself is interesting, I'm also super curious to know how this was typeset. Did NASA have special typewriters with common math symbols, or go through some office with a Linotype or early digital typesetter, or something else?
Heh, that's a really interesting question. It's easy to forget that not everybody lived in the world of PC's running TeX / LaTeX, and Postscript enabled laser printers, etc. I have no idea how math got typeset back in those days... I'm too young to have any appreciation for that era in that regard.
Re: I found Katherine Johnson's calculations at NASA [video]
#17Link to the paper at NASA's NTRS: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19980227091
While the work itself is interesting, I'm also super curious to know how this was typeset. Did NASA have special typewriters with common math symbols, or go through some office with a Linotype or early digital typesetter, or something else?
IBM Selectrics had a symbol ball [𝛼] you could swap for the standard one. It only takes a few seconds to change balls, though when I've seen people doing it they would normally type all the prose on a page, then go back and type all the math. Super/subscripts were done by rolling the paper up and down half a line. The big symbols like the square root were done later with pen and a ruler. Working from a handwritten manuscript, of course.
[𝛼] https://www.duxburysystems.org/downloads/library/texas/apple...
Re: I found Katherine Johnson's calculations at NASA [video]
#18“Actual” is such a weird word. From the title it sounds like it is going to contrast what people think is this person's work with what they actually did. Maybe to make a point that they did less work themselves than people assume or think. But it seems that “actual” in this case means that they wrote down the calculations on the paper that the video author has in their hands. (I'm gonna assume that this is the origin…
I think it makes it sound cool, like this is ACTUALLY her work, awesome!
Re: I found Katherine Johnson's calculations at NASA [video]
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
You don't seem to understand the history of the time. There are two names on the report. There was very little, if any, political support at that time for giving her "extra" credit. The more likely scenario is that she should have been first author. That sort of thing happened a lot.
I believe they meant misattributed in modern media, not while she was working.
Re: I found Katherine Johnson's calculations at NASA [video]
#20Link to the paper at NASA's NTRS: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19980227091
While the work itself is interesting, I'm also super curious to know how this was typeset. Did NASA have special typewriters with common math symbols, or go through some office with a Linotype or early digital typesetter, or something else?
In addition to Selectric symbol balls, you could use a "normal" typewriter with a set of extra symbols on tiny plastic sticks. You would place the symbol head on the stick in the way of the typewriter's strike.
I found a Math Overflow thread full of stories about this: https://mathoverflow.net/questions/19930/writing-papers-in-p...
And see page 7 of this for pictures: https://etconline.org/backissues/ETC099.pdf