Showing posts with label Katherine Johnson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Katherine Johnson. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Alice's Adventures in Numberland

     Recently I was alerted to some postings by Alice Silverberg -- she is a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of California at Irvine and she is has made outstanding contributions to the field of Cryptography.  AND Silverberg has recently written down (at this link) some of her adventures as a math-woman.  She has entitled them "Alice's Adventures in Numberland" and she offers an email address for readers' comments.  ALSO here are links to two of my earlier postings featuring Alice Silverberg and poetry:  "A Quantum Romance" by Adam Rulli-Gibbs and several syllable snowballs.
As a recent film featuring NASA mathematician, Katherine Johnson, 
points out, math-women often are:
Hidden figures:
women no one
notices are
changing the world.
 Although not mathematical, "Diving into the Wreck
by Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) also is relevant here.
      Here is a link to an important article by Judy Green, "How Many Women Mathematicians Can You Name?"  Green, now an emeritus professor at Marymount University, opens her article (first published in Math Horizons in 2001) with the admission that until her last undergraduate semester the only female mathematician she could name is Emmy NoetherGreen's article, and a book she has co-written (with Jeanne LaDuke) and its companion website, help to remedy such situations for others.  There are many important math women to know!
     AND, if you still have time after exploring the links above, 
please visit my article (with poetry) "They Say She Was Good -- for a Woman,"
published July 2017 in the online Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Honor Math-Women ...

       The first math-woman that inspired me was Laura Church; the first famous math-woman (someone with a theorem named after her) whom I came to admire -- and write a poem about -- was Emmy Noether (1882-1935).  As a recent film featuring NASA mathematician, Katherine Johnson, points out, math-women are:

Hidden figures:
women no one
notices are
changing the world.

Other living mathematicians who deserve to be more well-known include:
         Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian mathematician at Stanford who in 2014 won the prestigious Fields Medal for her work related to the symmetry of curved surfaces.
         Moon Duchin, a Tufts University professor who is using geometry to fight gerrymandering.
         Cathy O'Neill, a data scientist (and blogger at mathbabe.org) whose recent book Weapons of Math Destruction helps readers to understand the roles (and threats) of big data in our society. 

 TODAY is the International Women's Day!

Celebrate the day by getting to know some math-women.  Try for ten. Learn their names, read their bios.  Here are two websites that can help:


And here is a link to a list of women who deserve, but do not have, Wikipedia Pages.  Can you help?