Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Unearthing the Legacy of Harvard's Female 'Computers'

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday August 29 2017, @11:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the space-the-final-frontier dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

In a cramped Harvard University sub-basement, a team of women is working to document the rich history of women astronomers.

More than 40 years before women gained the right to vote, female "computers" at Harvard College Observatory were making major astronomical discoveries.

Between 1885 and 1927, the observatory employed about 80 women who studied glass plate photographs of the stars. They found galaxies and nebulas and created methods to measure distance in space.

They were famous - newspapers wrote about them, they published scientific papers under their own names. But they were virtually forgotten during the next century.

But a recent discovery of thousands of pages of their calculations by a modern group of women has spurred new interest in their legacy.

A worthy effort, though the correct term for "female 'computer'" is "femputer", at least according to Futurama.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Unearthing the Legacy of Harvard's Female 'Computers' | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 24 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday August 30 2017, @05:01AM (2 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday August 30 2017, @05:01AM (#561317) Journal

    Everything you need to know is covered by the "A team of women" combined with the "In a cramped Harvard sub-basement"
    The implication is this is a desperate group of the sisterhood battling the evil white male oppressors to save their kind.

    My first association when I read "in a basement" is "nerd". And "computer" fits perfectly well to that.

    However, good on them for documenting history.. keep at it, but this isnt tech news, not even close.
    Bad on this article for playing a bunch of pathetic PC 'cards'

    Actually an article about PC cards [wikipedia.org] would certainly be a tech article, although probably not exactly news.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @05:36AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 30 2017, @05:36AM (#561331)

    I'm a scientist in a research lab. The entire existence of the lab is to produce output by me and others like me. We get the basement while admin gets the upstairs offices with sunlight and views. I'm not female. Something seems unfair about this :(

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday August 30 2017, @06:08AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 30 2017, @06:08AM (#561344) Journal

      We get the basement while admin gets the upstairs offices with sunlight... Something seems unfair about this :(

      Two points:
      1. it's not a bug, it's a feature - most of the experiments require isolation from the environment. A basement facilitates that (e.g. less structural vibration, less air drafts, controllable light levels)
      2. if you want to change places, you only need to... say... let some certain reactions run amok. Then they'll be more prone to accept the protection of a bunker and let you have the upstairs.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford