WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.140 Imagine for a second that you are an astronaut. 00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:05.320 Right. And you are about to be strapped into 00:00:05.320 --> 00:00:09.060 this tiny metal cylinder sitting on top of thousands 00:00:09.060 --> 00:00:11.419 of pounds of highly explosive rocket fuel. Sounds 00:00:11.419 --> 00:00:14.320 terrifying. Oh, totally. And you are trusting 00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:17.280 your life. and really the future of your entire 00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:20.519 country's space program, to the very first generation 00:00:20.519 --> 00:00:22.500 of electronic computers. Yeah, these massive 00:00:22.500 --> 00:00:25.179 machines that fill entire rooms. Exactly. They're 00:00:25.179 --> 00:00:27.620 cutting edge, but they are completely untested 00:00:27.620 --> 00:00:30.440 in this kind of life or death scenario. So you 00:00:30.440 --> 00:00:31.980 look at the mission directors, the people who 00:00:31.980 --> 00:00:34.640 have spent millions of dollars on these digital 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:37.539 brains, and you tell them, absolutely not. You 00:00:37.539 --> 00:00:40.359 just refuse. Right. You refuse to launch until 00:00:40.359 --> 00:00:44.100 one specific human being double checks the machine's 00:00:44.100 --> 00:00:46.280 math. It's honestly one of the most stunning 00:00:46.280 --> 00:00:48.859 visuals in modern history. I mean, when you really 00:00:48.859 --> 00:00:51.840 think about it, you have the absolute peak of 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:54.299 human technological advancement, like the literal 00:00:54.299 --> 00:00:57.829 dawn of the digital age. paused, stuck on the 00:00:57.829 --> 00:00:59.909 launch pad. Yeah. And the entire apparatus is 00:00:59.909 --> 00:01:02.670 waiting for a single person with the pencil and 00:01:02.670 --> 00:01:04.829 a mechanical calculating machine to give the 00:01:04.829 --> 00:01:07.730 green light. Well, today's deep dive is all about 00:01:07.730 --> 00:01:11.629 that exact person. We are pulling from a comprehensive, 00:01:11.969 --> 00:01:14.670 historical and biographical source, chronicling 00:01:14.670 --> 00:01:18.290 the incredible 101 year life of Crayola Catherine 00:01:18.290 --> 00:01:20.510 Johnson. It is such an amazing story. It really 00:01:20.510 --> 00:01:23.590 is. And our mission today is to figure out exactly 00:01:23.590 --> 00:01:26.489 how a brilliant mathematician from West Virginia 00:01:26.489 --> 00:01:29.950 bypassed pretty much insurmountable barriers 00:01:29.950 --> 00:01:33.310 of race and gender to become the ultimate human 00:01:33.310 --> 00:01:35.969 safety net for America's journey to the stars. 00:01:36.219 --> 00:01:38.060 Okay, let's unpack this. We have to start at 00:01:38.060 --> 00:01:39.760 the beginning, I think, because her early life 00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:42.379 really establishes the sheer velocity of her 00:01:42.379 --> 00:01:44.180 intellect. Oh, absolutely. So she was born in 00:01:44.180 --> 00:01:46.260 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. 00:01:46.459 --> 00:01:48.579 Her mother was a teacher, and her father was 00:01:48.579 --> 00:01:51.079 this true polymath of his era. I mean, he was 00:01:51.079 --> 00:01:53.579 a lumber man, a farmer, a handyman, and he worked 00:01:53.579 --> 00:01:55.379 at the Greenbrier Hotel. Wow. So he was doing 00:01:55.379 --> 00:01:57.439 a bit of everything. Yeah, exactly. And from 00:01:57.439 --> 00:02:00.459 a very early age, she demonstrated this intense, 00:02:00.760 --> 00:02:03.780 almost a gravitational pull toward mathematics. 00:02:03.859 --> 00:02:06.109 She counted everything. Like what? Like the steps 00:02:06.109 --> 00:02:07.750 of the road, the steps to church, the number 00:02:07.750 --> 00:02:09.550 of dishes she washed. If it could be counted, 00:02:09.650 --> 00:02:12.629 she counted it. That's wild. But her intellect 00:02:12.629 --> 00:02:15.449 immediately collided with this massive systemic 00:02:15.449 --> 00:02:18.729 wall. Right, the segregation laws. Yeah. In her 00:02:18.729 --> 00:02:21.409 county, public schooling for black students simply 00:02:21.409 --> 00:02:24.349 stopped after the eighth grade. The local government 00:02:24.349 --> 00:02:27.289 had basically decided that was the absolute limit 00:02:27.289 --> 00:02:29.509 of the educational infrastructure they were going 00:02:29.509 --> 00:02:31.990 to provide. If she wanted to keep learning, she 00:02:31.990 --> 00:02:34.590 was completely on her own. But her family just 00:02:34.590 --> 00:02:37.430 refused to accept that dead end. They essentially 00:02:37.430 --> 00:02:40.250 engineered a dual life for themselves. How so? 00:02:40.569 --> 00:02:42.849 Well, during the school year, her parents would 00:02:42.849 --> 00:02:45.909 move the family 120 miles away to Institute West 00:02:45.909 --> 00:02:48.689 Virginia. That's a huge commitment. It really 00:02:48.689 --> 00:02:51.469 was. And they did this specifically so Katherine 00:02:51.469 --> 00:02:53.830 could attend a high school situated right on 00:02:53.830 --> 00:02:56.680 the campus of West Virginia State College. And 00:02:56.680 --> 00:02:58.979 she was only 10 years old at the time. 10 years 00:02:58.979 --> 00:03:01.400 old? Yeah. 10 years old and just walking around 00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:03.639 a college campus to take high school classes. 00:03:04.120 --> 00:03:05.800 I mean, think about the kids you know today at 00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:07.900 10 years old. Right. They're navigating, what, 00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:10.659 fifth grade? Yeah, maybe fifth grade. And imagine 00:03:10.659 --> 00:03:13.860 them packing up their lives to tackle an advanced 00:03:13.860 --> 00:03:16.580 high school curriculum. It's like she was speed 00:03:16.580 --> 00:03:18.879 running a video game on the hardest possible 00:03:18.879 --> 00:03:21.479 difficulty setting. She wasn't just excelling. 00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:24.400 She was forcing the world around her. to warp 00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:26.580 to her abilities. That's a great way to put it. 00:03:26.719 --> 00:03:28.960 Because she graduates high school at 14, she 00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:31.979 graduates college at 18, summa cum laude, no 00:03:31.979 --> 00:03:34.460 less, with degrees in both mathematics and French. 00:03:34.680 --> 00:03:36.639 And her progression there highlights something 00:03:36.639 --> 00:03:38.979 really crucial about the nature of genius, I 00:03:38.979 --> 00:03:42.460 think, which is that talent is universal, but 00:03:42.460 --> 00:03:45.060 opportunity is not. Right. She needed the right 00:03:45.060 --> 00:03:47.740 environment to flourish. And she found it in 00:03:47.740 --> 00:03:51.949 mentors like chemist Angie Turner King and WWC 00:03:51.949 --> 00:03:54.050 Flynn Clader. And Clader is a huge figure in 00:03:54.050 --> 00:03:56.110 this story. Oh, absolutely. He was only the third 00:03:56.110 --> 00:03:58.330 African -American to ever receive a doctorate 00:03:58.330 --> 00:04:00.949 in mathematics. And when Catherine just blew 00:04:00.949 --> 00:04:03.370 through the existing college curriculum, Clader 00:04:03.370 --> 00:04:06.169 literally invented new math courses just for 00:04:06.169 --> 00:04:08.129 her. I want to pause on that for a second, because 00:04:08.129 --> 00:04:10.789 what does it actually mean to invent new math 00:04:10.789 --> 00:04:12.889 courses? I mean, we aren't talking about giving 00:04:12.889 --> 00:04:15.129 your extra homework sheets. No, no, not at all. 00:04:15.409 --> 00:04:17.930 We are talking about moving way past standards. 00:04:17.899 --> 00:04:21.019 textbook calculations and into advanced theoretical 00:04:21.019 --> 00:04:23.860 problem solving. Clader was teaching her analytic 00:04:23.860 --> 00:04:26.860 geometry. Which is what, exactly? It's essentially 00:04:26.860 --> 00:04:30.100 the synthesis of algebraic equations and geometric 00:04:30.100 --> 00:04:32.779 shapes. So instead of just drawing a curve on 00:04:32.779 --> 00:04:35.839 a page, you are using complex equations to define 00:04:35.839 --> 00:04:38.399 every single microscopic point on that curve. 00:04:38.459 --> 00:04:41.000 Oh, wow. Yeah, he was training her brain to map 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:44.220 physical space using raw numbers. He recognized 00:04:44.220 --> 00:04:47.139 very early on that she had the specific cognitive 00:04:47.139 --> 00:04:50.339 architecture required to be a high -level research 00:04:50.339 --> 00:04:52.680 mathematician. And that cognitive architecture 00:04:52.680 --> 00:04:54.829 puts her right in the crosshairs of history. 00:04:55.389 --> 00:04:57.430 Because after she spent some time teaching, she 00:04:57.430 --> 00:04:59.589 is selected to integrate the graduate mathematics 00:04:59.589 --> 00:05:02.189 program at West Virginia University in Morgantown. 00:05:02.230 --> 00:05:04.730 Right, this is in 1939. Yeah, and this happens 00:05:04.730 --> 00:05:07.209 right in the wake of the 1938 Supreme Court ruling 00:05:07.209 --> 00:05:10.680 Missouri XREL, Gaines v. Canada. What's fascinating 00:05:10.680 --> 00:05:13.439 here is how that Supreme Court ruling acted as 00:05:13.439 --> 00:05:16.779 a catalyst, right? But it was Johnson's undeniable 00:05:16.779 --> 00:05:19.040 brilliance that made her the prime candidate 00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:21.959 to actually break that specific ceiling. Because 00:05:21.959 --> 00:05:24.079 the ruling didn't just automatically fix things. 00:05:24.319 --> 00:05:27.480 Exactly. The ruling basically mandated that states 00:05:27.480 --> 00:05:30.540 either provide separate, equal higher education 00:05:30.540 --> 00:05:33.980 for Black students, or admit them to white universities. 00:05:34.579 --> 00:05:37.420 So her college president handpicked her to be 00:05:37.420 --> 00:05:39.860 one of only three African -American students 00:05:39.860 --> 00:05:43.759 and the only woman to integrate WVU's graduate 00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:46.420 math program. Which places just a staggering 00:05:46.420 --> 00:05:48.779 amount of cultural and political pressure on 00:05:48.779 --> 00:05:50.920 a young woman who, at the end of the day, really 00:05:50.920 --> 00:05:53.399 just wants to solve equations. Yeah, the weight 00:05:53.399 --> 00:05:55.800 of that must have been immense. Ultimately, she 00:05:56.530 --> 00:05:58.930 pauses that graduate program after the first 00:05:58.930 --> 00:06:00.810 session to start a family with her first husband, 00:06:01.029 --> 00:06:03.870 James Goble, and she goes back to teaching. But, 00:06:03.930 --> 00:06:05.329 you know, you read through the sources and you 00:06:05.329 --> 00:06:07.850 get the distinct feeling that a mind operating 00:06:07.850 --> 00:06:10.629 at her level just couldn't stay hidden in a classroom 00:06:10.629 --> 00:06:13.209 forever. No, definitely not. The world was about 00:06:13.209 --> 00:06:16.069 to demand her specific set of skills. Because 00:06:16.069 --> 00:06:18.930 the entire geopolitical landscape was shifting 00:06:18.930 --> 00:06:22.290 drastically. The Cold War escalated, and the 00:06:22.290 --> 00:06:24.750 sudden explosion of aerospace research created 00:06:24.750 --> 00:06:27.689 this insatiable demand for sheer brain power. 00:06:28.009 --> 00:06:29.370 Right. They just needed people who could do the 00:06:29.370 --> 00:06:33.009 math. Exactly. The walls of institutional segregation 00:06:33.009 --> 00:06:36.550 began to crack, honestly, simply out of mathematical 00:06:36.550 --> 00:06:39.269 necessity. They needed the brain power, and they 00:06:39.269 --> 00:06:41.290 needed it immediately. And that brings us to 00:06:41.290 --> 00:06:45.040 1952. A relative mentions that the National Advisory 00:06:45.040 --> 00:06:47.839 Committee for Aeronautics, which is NACA, the 00:06:47.839 --> 00:06:50.819 precursor to NASA, is hiring for its West Area 00:06:50.819 --> 00:06:53.399 computing section in Hampton, Virginia. Yeah. 00:06:53.839 --> 00:06:56.579 So by the summer of 1953, she takes the job, 00:06:56.879 --> 00:06:59.060 she moves her family to Newport News, and she 00:06:59.060 --> 00:07:01.139 walks into a pool of women famously referred 00:07:01.139 --> 00:07:03.899 to as computers who wore skirts. And it is so 00:07:03.899 --> 00:07:05.699 important for us to remember that at this time, 00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:08.279 computer was a job title. It wasn't machine. 00:07:08.399 --> 00:07:10.379 Right. It was a person doing the computing. Yeah. 00:07:10.519 --> 00:07:12.980 Imagine trying to design an airplane wing today. 00:07:13.019 --> 00:07:15.699 You would just use software, right? But in 1953, 00:07:15.879 --> 00:07:18.259 a test plane would fly, and instruments inside 00:07:18.259 --> 00:07:21.079 a black box would record data on photographic 00:07:21.079 --> 00:07:23.639 film. The human computers had to read that film, 00:07:23.879 --> 00:07:26.600 frame by frame. And then they'd use slide rules 00:07:26.600 --> 00:07:29.980 and mechanical desk calculators to plot the exact 00:07:29.980 --> 00:07:32.699 aerodynamic forces acting on the plane. That 00:07:32.699 --> 00:07:35.139 sounds incredibly tedious. It was grueling. It 00:07:35.139 --> 00:07:38.560 was hyper -precise manual mathematics. And Katherine 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:42.189 Johnson was incre - I mean, so good, in fact, 00:07:42.670 --> 00:07:45.410 that she and a colleague were temporarily assigned 00:07:45.410 --> 00:07:47.730 to an all -male flight research team. Because 00:07:47.730 --> 00:07:50.110 of that analytic geometry background. Exactly. 00:07:50.350 --> 00:07:52.509 Her deep understanding of that geometry made 00:07:52.509 --> 00:07:55.290 her indispensable. She later joked that they, 00:07:55.290 --> 00:07:57.550 quote, forgot to return me to the pool. Which 00:07:57.550 --> 00:08:01.089 is pretty funny. It is. But while the math was 00:08:01.089 --> 00:08:03.589 elegant, the environment she was working in was 00:08:03.589 --> 00:08:07.129 incredibly harsh. This is Virginia in the 1950s. 00:08:07.430 --> 00:08:10.170 She's required to work, eat, and use the restrooms 00:08:10.170 --> 00:08:12.870 in segregated facilities. Her office literally 00:08:12.870 --> 00:08:15.490 had a sign on the door that read colored computers. 00:08:16.069 --> 00:08:18.449 Yeah. The juxtaposition between the cutting edge 00:08:18.449 --> 00:08:20.910 science they were doing and the archaic social 00:08:20.910 --> 00:08:23.750 structure of the time is just glaring. It really 00:08:23.750 --> 00:08:25.990 is. And yet she later said something about this 00:08:25.990 --> 00:08:27.889 that I really want your take on. When asked about 00:08:27.889 --> 00:08:30.110 the segregation, she said, I didn't feel any 00:08:30.110 --> 00:08:32.049 segregation. I knew it was there, but I didn't 00:08:32.049 --> 00:08:34.710 feel it. She talked about how everyone was intensely 00:08:34.710 --> 00:08:36.450 focused on the research and they played bridge 00:08:36.450 --> 00:08:38.730 together at lunch. And it just didn't impact 00:08:38.730 --> 00:08:41.149 her. How does a person walk past a colored computer 00:08:41.149 --> 00:08:43.110 sign every morning and claim they didn't feel 00:08:43.110 --> 00:08:46.830 it? Well, I think it speaks to a profound psychological 00:08:46.830 --> 00:08:50.730 defense mechanism, but also to the great equalizer 00:08:50.730 --> 00:08:52.889 of mathematics itself. What do you mean by that? 00:08:53.250 --> 00:08:55.399 Think about it. When you are calculating the 00:08:55.399 --> 00:08:58.759 physics of flight, the math is entirely objective. 00:08:59.419 --> 00:09:02.039 The numbers do not care about your race, your 00:09:02.039 --> 00:09:05.019 gender, or the Jim Crow laws of 1950s Virginia. 00:09:05.220 --> 00:09:07.259 Right, 2 plus 2 is 4 no matter what room you're 00:09:07.259 --> 00:09:10.860 in. Exactly. By pouring her entire consciousness 00:09:10.860 --> 00:09:14.120 into the undeniable truth of the equations, she 00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:16.720 carved out the psychological sanctuary for herself. 00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:19.299 She operated in a realm where her intellect was 00:09:19.299 --> 00:09:21.620 the only variable that mattered. Engaging with 00:09:21.620 --> 00:09:23.600 the indignity of those signs wasn't going to 00:09:23.600 --> 00:09:25.519 solve the aerodynamic problem sitting on her 00:09:25.519 --> 00:09:28.519 desk. She simply refused to let their prejudices 00:09:28.519 --> 00:09:32.820 distract her from her work. And that quiet confidence 00:09:32.820 --> 00:09:36.340 bred this incredible assertiveness in her. I 00:09:36.340 --> 00:09:38.519 mean, she started asking to attend the editorial 00:09:38.519 --> 00:09:40.700 meetings where the engineers discussed the research. 00:09:41.159 --> 00:09:44.080 And up until then, no woman had ever been allowed 00:09:44.080 --> 00:09:46.580 in those rooms. But she didn't ask for permission. 00:09:46.779 --> 00:09:49.580 She asked for logical consistency. I love that. 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:51.980 She basically told them, look, I have done the 00:09:51.980 --> 00:09:54.120 calculations. I understand the data better than 00:09:54.120 --> 00:09:56.399 anyone. And therefore, my presence in this room 00:09:56.399 --> 00:09:58.799 is scientifically necessary. And what could they 00:09:58.799 --> 00:10:01.929 even say to that? Nothing. The engineers, confronted 00:10:01.929 --> 00:10:04.649 with that undeniable logic, eventually just let 00:10:04.649 --> 00:10:07.149 her in. Which sets up one of my absolute favorite 00:10:07.149 --> 00:10:10.230 moments in this entire source material. The Skopinski 00:10:10.230 --> 00:10:13.090 Report. Oh, this is a great story. At this time, 00:10:13.370 --> 00:10:15.090 women were categorically barred from putting 00:10:15.090 --> 00:10:17.409 their names on research reports. Their labor 00:10:17.409 --> 00:10:20.080 was just meant to be invisible. But Johnson was 00:10:20.080 --> 00:10:22.419 doing the heavy lifting on this highly complex 00:10:22.419 --> 00:10:25.740 report regarding azimuth angles for placing satellites 00:10:25.740 --> 00:10:28.279 over specific Earth positions. Let's clarify 00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:30.320 what an azimuth angle is real quick because it 00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:32.120 really highlights the complexity of her work 00:10:32.120 --> 00:10:34.919 here. Yeah, please do. So if you want to put 00:10:34.919 --> 00:10:37.720 a satellite in orbit so it passes over a specific 00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:41.080 city at a specific exact time, you can't just 00:10:41.080 --> 00:10:43.580 shoot the rocket straight up. Because the Earth 00:10:43.580 --> 00:10:45.820 is spinning. Exactly. The Earth is a spinning 00:10:45.820 --> 00:10:47.840 sphere and the satellite will be orbiting in 00:10:47.840 --> 00:10:51.399 three dimensions. The azimuth angle is the exact 00:10:51.399 --> 00:10:53.720 compass direction you need to launch the rocket 00:10:53.720 --> 00:10:56.700 so its trajectory perfectly aligns with the spinning 00:10:56.700 --> 00:11:00.399 planet down below. And she is doing this mind 00:11:00.399 --> 00:11:03.340 -bending spherical geometry by hand. By hand, 00:11:03.539 --> 00:11:06.019 yes. So she's working with a male engineer, Ted 00:11:06.019 --> 00:11:09.909 Skopinski, and their supervisor, Henry Pearson, 00:11:10.090 --> 00:11:13.529 who the source dryly notes was not a fan of women. 00:11:14.190 --> 00:11:16.809 He is pushing to get this report finished so 00:11:16.809 --> 00:11:19.330 Skopinski can transfer out to Houston. But Skopinski 00:11:19.330 --> 00:11:22.070 knows the reality of the situation, so he pushes 00:11:22.070 --> 00:11:24.490 back against the supervisor. He says, Catherine 00:11:24.490 --> 00:11:26.090 should finish the report. She's done most of 00:11:26.090 --> 00:11:27.909 the work anyway. It's like the ultimate mic drop. 00:11:28.149 --> 00:11:30.190 It's like being a ghostwriter who finally forces 00:11:30.190 --> 00:11:32.070 the publisher to put your name on the cover of 00:11:32.070 --> 00:11:34.299 the bestseller. That's exactly what it is. The 00:11:34.299 --> 00:11:36.940 supervisor had no counter -argument. Pearson 00:11:36.940 --> 00:11:38.980 was forced to let her finish it, and Katherine 00:11:38.980 --> 00:11:40.860 Johnson became the first woman in her division 00:11:40.860 --> 00:11:43.159 to have her name printed on a research report. 00:11:43.279 --> 00:11:46.179 And this is a massive structural victory. By 00:11:46.179 --> 00:11:48.460 forcing her name onto the permanent historical 00:11:48.460 --> 00:11:50.799 record, she destroyed the illusion that women 00:11:50.799 --> 00:11:53.899 were merely human calculators. She proved they 00:11:53.899 --> 00:11:56.480 were authors of the aerospace research itself. 00:11:56.899 --> 00:11:59.080 And getting her name on that report was merely 00:11:59.080 --> 00:12:02.080 the prologue. Because soon, NACI transitions 00:12:02.080 --> 00:12:05.740 into NASA and the stakes just skyrocket. We move 00:12:05.740 --> 00:12:08.700 from testing airplane gusts to launching human 00:12:08.700 --> 00:12:11.720 beings into the vacuum of space. And here's where 00:12:11.720 --> 00:12:14.080 it gets really interesting. Because the mathematics 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:16.759 go from being theoretical aerodynamic research 00:12:16.759 --> 00:12:19.139 to being the only thread keeping an astronaut 00:12:19.139 --> 00:12:22.000 alive. Right. We enter the Mercury program. In 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:24.740 1961, Alan Shepard becomes the first American 00:12:24.740 --> 00:12:27.360 in space. And Katherine Johnson was the one who 00:12:27.360 --> 00:12:29.580 calculated his trajectory and his exact launch 00:12:29.580 --> 00:12:31.500 window. And to put that in perspective for you 00:12:31.500 --> 00:12:34.200 listening, calculating a launch window isn't 00:12:34.200 --> 00:12:36.580 like looking at a train schedule. You are trying 00:12:36.580 --> 00:12:39.559 to hit a moving target from a spinning planet 00:12:39.559 --> 00:12:42.340 through a varying atmosphere using a vehicle 00:12:42.340 --> 00:12:44.940 that is essentially a controlled explosion. It's 00:12:44.940 --> 00:12:47.820 unfathomably complicated. If you launch three 00:12:47.820 --> 00:12:50.519 minutes late, The planet has rotated, the orbital 00:12:50.519 --> 00:12:53.039 mechanics have shifted, and the astronaut misses 00:12:53.039 --> 00:12:56.179 the target area entirely. Exactly, but her calculations 00:12:56.179 --> 00:12:59.080 were so flawless that Shepard's Freedom 7 capsule 00:12:59.080 --> 00:13:01.639 was found immediately after splashdown. Wow. 00:13:01.940 --> 00:13:03.960 But her contribution wasn't just the primary 00:13:03.960 --> 00:13:07.519 path. She also plotted detailed backup navigation 00:13:07.519 --> 00:13:10.100 charts for the astronauts just in case of a sudden 00:13:10.100 --> 00:13:12.799 electronic failure. She was always planning for 00:13:12.799 --> 00:13:15.620 the worst case scenario. Which brings us to 1962 00:13:15.620 --> 00:13:19.259 and the legendary John Glenn story. NASA has 00:13:19.259 --> 00:13:22.320 finally installed these massive, room -sized 00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:25.519 IBM electronic digital computers. They can process 00:13:25.519 --> 00:13:27.919 calculations at speeds humans just can't even 00:13:27.919 --> 00:13:29.840 comprehend. Right, the cutting edge of tech. 00:13:30.240 --> 00:13:32.860 Yeah, and they're supposed to calculate the orbital 00:13:32.860 --> 00:13:35.240 equations that will allow John Glenn to circle 00:13:35.240 --> 00:13:38.679 the Earth. But Glenn looks at the machines and 00:13:38.679 --> 00:13:41.860 balks. He tells the engineers to get the girl. 00:13:42.039 --> 00:13:45.259 He completely refuses to fly unless Katherine 00:13:45.259 --> 00:13:48.100 Johnson personally rechecks the machine's numbers. 00:13:48.639 --> 00:13:50.879 And this raises a really important question about 00:13:50.879 --> 00:13:53.980 the nature of trust in engineering. If you just 00:13:53.980 --> 00:13:56.720 spent millions of dollars on the most advanced 00:13:56.720 --> 00:13:59.580 calculating machine in human history, why do 00:13:59.580 --> 00:14:01.820 you trust a human brain more? Right. I mean, 00:14:01.820 --> 00:14:03.919 it seems completely counterintuitive to us today 00:14:03.919 --> 00:14:06.720 when we trust our smartphones to navigate us 00:14:06.720 --> 00:14:08.519 literally everywhere without a second thought. 00:14:08.600 --> 00:14:10.320 You really have to look at it from John Glenn's 00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:13.029 perspective. The electronic computer was a black 00:14:13.029 --> 00:14:16.389 box. It was prone to hiccups, power fluctuations, 00:14:16.629 --> 00:14:18.970 random glitches. It could spit out an answer, 00:14:18.970 --> 00:14:20.730 but it couldn't explain how it got there. It 00:14:20.730 --> 00:14:23.789 didn't show its work. Exactly. Katherine Johnson, 00:14:23.929 --> 00:14:26.649 however, was totally transparent. Glenn knew 00:14:26.649 --> 00:14:28.629 that she understood the fundamental architecture 00:14:28.629 --> 00:14:31.590 of the mathematics. If she arrived at the exact 00:14:31.590 --> 00:14:34.370 same numbers as the computer, it meant the computer's 00:14:34.370 --> 00:14:37.070 process was sound. She wasn't just checking the 00:14:37.070 --> 00:14:39.809 math, really. She was verifying the machine's 00:14:39.809 --> 00:14:43.440 sanity. The irony there is beautiful. Her sheer 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:46.000 human brilliance was used to legitimize the very 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:48.460 digital technology that would eventually render 00:14:48.460 --> 00:14:51.519 human computers obsolete. She was basically the 00:14:51.519 --> 00:14:54.000 bridge between the analog and the digital ages. 00:14:54.350 --> 00:14:57.009 And her reputation for absolute accuracy became 00:14:57.009 --> 00:14:59.789 the gold standard at NASA. She went on to help 00:14:59.789 --> 00:15:02.690 calculate the projectory for the 1969 Apollo 00:15:02.690 --> 00:15:04.990 11 flight to the moon. That's incredible. Yeah, 00:15:05.070 --> 00:15:07.070 while Neil Armstrong was taking those first steps, 00:15:07.450 --> 00:15:09.090 she was at a meeting in the Pocono Mountains 00:15:09.090 --> 00:15:11.889 crowded around this tiny television screen watching 00:15:11.889 --> 00:15:14.110 the combination of her life's work. But the moment 00:15:14.110 --> 00:15:16.509 that truly defines her value to the space program 00:15:16.509 --> 00:15:19.049 I think happens a year later during Apollo 13 00:15:19.049 --> 00:15:22.429 in 1970. The mission famously aborts after an 00:15:22.429 --> 00:15:25.169 oxygen tank explodes. The crew is stranded halfway 00:15:25.169 --> 00:15:27.250 to the moon. It's a total disaster. They are 00:15:27.250 --> 00:15:30.250 losing power, systems are failing, and their 00:15:30.250 --> 00:15:33.049 electronic navigation is dead. They have to navigate 00:15:33.049 --> 00:15:35.870 back to Earth manually. And what saves them? 00:15:36.269 --> 00:15:39.129 Katherine Johnson's backup procedures. Specifically, 00:15:39.409 --> 00:15:41.809 her work on the one -star observation system. 00:15:42.009 --> 00:15:44.389 The one -star observation system is just a stroke 00:15:44.389 --> 00:15:47.929 of absolute genius. When a spacecraft loses power, 00:15:48.289 --> 00:15:51.049 it loses its digital horizon. Meaning they don't 00:15:51.049 --> 00:15:53.889 know up from down? Exactly. The astronauts have 00:15:53.889 --> 00:15:57.029 no idea which way is up, down, or toward Earth. 00:15:57.549 --> 00:15:59.429 But Johnson had helped design a system where 00:15:59.429 --> 00:16:01.950 an astronaut could look through the window, find 00:16:01.950 --> 00:16:05.409 one specific known star, and use it as a fixed 00:16:05.409 --> 00:16:08.679 anchor point. Just one star. Just one star. By 00:16:08.679 --> 00:16:10.679 measuring the angle of that single star at a 00:16:10.679 --> 00:16:13.299 specific time, they could use spherical trigonometry 00:16:13.299 --> 00:16:16.240 to calculate the exact orientation of the spacecraft 00:16:16.240 --> 00:16:19.240 in three -dimensional space. It is a celestial 00:16:19.240 --> 00:16:21.840 compass. It is breathtaking to think about. In 00:16:21.840 --> 00:16:23.639 a later interview, she said something so poignant 00:16:23.639 --> 00:16:26.000 about that time. She said, everybody was concerned 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:28.000 about them getting there. We were concerned about 00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:30.519 them getting back. That encapsulates her entire 00:16:30.519 --> 00:16:33.360 philosophy. The engineers were focused on the 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:35.860 glory of the launch, but she was focused on the 00:16:35.860 --> 00:16:38.480 absolute certainty of the return. When disaster 00:16:38.480 --> 00:16:41.220 strikes, it's not the flashy cutting edge technology 00:16:41.220 --> 00:16:44.559 that saves the day. It's the quiet foundational, 00:16:44.820 --> 00:16:48.500 tedious preparation, the backup charts, the analog 00:16:48.500 --> 00:16:51.179 contingencies that actually brings people home 00:16:51.179 --> 00:16:53.759 alive. And yet... Despite being the architect 00:16:53.759 --> 00:16:56.679 of these life -saving systems, society took decades 00:16:56.679 --> 00:16:59.120 to truly recognize her. It really did. She stayed 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:01.899 at NASA for a long, quiet career, eventually 00:17:01.899 --> 00:17:05.000 retiring in 1986. She worked on the space shuttle 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:07.940 program, the Earth resources satellite. She even 00:17:07.940 --> 00:17:10.220 drafted early mathematical models for a human 00:17:10.220 --> 00:17:12.950 mission to Mars. Wow. Over her career, she co 00:17:12.950 --> 00:17:15.410 -authored 26 scientific papers. She also lived 00:17:15.410 --> 00:17:17.450 a remarkably full personal life. She was married 00:17:17.450 --> 00:17:19.730 to his second husband, Jim Johnson, who was an 00:17:19.730 --> 00:17:21.970 army officer and a Korean War veteran for 60 00:17:21.970 --> 00:17:25.029 years. 60 years. Yeah. She was three daughters, 00:17:25.250 --> 00:17:27.529 had six grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. 00:17:27.829 --> 00:17:30.869 She lived to be 101 years old, passing away in 00:17:30.869 --> 00:17:33.849 2020. And she spent her later years endlessly 00:17:33.849 --> 00:17:36.349 encouraging young students to enter STEM fields. 00:17:36.990 --> 00:17:40.390 But the massive public recognition. The awards, 00:17:40.769 --> 00:17:42.529 they didn't really start pouring in until she 00:17:42.529 --> 00:17:45.349 was almost 100 years old. It was this massive 00:17:45.349 --> 00:17:48.730 avalanche of delayed recognition. In 2015, President 00:17:48.730 --> 00:17:51.049 Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal 00:17:51.049 --> 00:17:53.650 of Freedom, and he specifically pointed out that 00:17:53.650 --> 00:17:56.509 she refused to be limited by society's expectations 00:17:56.509 --> 00:17:59.430 of her gender and race. Then you get the 2016 00:17:59.430 --> 00:18:02.180 film. Hidden Figures, where she's portrayed by 00:18:02.180 --> 00:18:04.579 Toraji P. Henson. She goes to the Oscars in a 00:18:04.579 --> 00:18:06.500 wheelchair and receives this massive standing 00:18:06.500 --> 00:18:09.059 ovation from the entire world. Suddenly, NASA 00:18:09.059 --> 00:18:11.759 opens a 40 ,000 square foot Katherine G. Johnson 00:18:11.759 --> 00:18:15.059 computational research facility at Langley. Northrop 00:18:15.059 --> 00:18:17.900 Grumman names a spacecraft the SS Katherine Johnson. 00:18:18.299 --> 00:18:20.920 There is a GPS satellite bearing her name. Elementary 00:18:20.920 --> 00:18:22.740 and middle schools are renamed in her honor. 00:18:23.140 --> 00:18:24.980 Mattel even makes a Barbie doll in her likeness. 00:18:25.039 --> 00:18:26.900 It's wild how fast it all happened at the end. 00:18:27.140 --> 00:18:29.960 It is. So what does this all mean? I mean, why 00:18:29.960 --> 00:18:32.339 did it take half a century for the world to realize 00:18:32.339 --> 00:18:34.700 who built the math that took us to the moon? 00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:38.319 It's almost as if society found a winning lottery 00:18:38.319 --> 00:18:41.140 ticket in the couch cushions 50 years after the 00:18:41.140 --> 00:18:43.900 drawing and finally decided to cash it in. Well, 00:18:43.900 --> 00:18:46.099 if we connect this to the bigger picture, these 00:18:46.099 --> 00:18:48.039 late in life awards aren't just about honoring 00:18:48.039 --> 00:18:51.480 one woman. They are a massive societal effort 00:18:51.480 --> 00:18:54.740 to correct a deeply flawed historical record. 00:18:54.819 --> 00:18:57.839 How so? Margot Lee Shetterly, the author of the 00:18:57.839 --> 00:19:00.339 book Hidden Figures, which was a primary source 00:19:00.339 --> 00:19:02.619 for much of her biographical data points, had 00:19:02.619 --> 00:19:06.119 a crucial bias in how we value labor. For decades, 00:19:06.299 --> 00:19:09.000 computing was viewed as women's work. And because 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:11.500 it was done by women, the male -dominated engineering 00:19:11.500 --> 00:19:13.839 establishment viewed it as secretarial. Hostiting 00:19:13.839 --> 00:19:16.500 numbers. Exactly. They believed the hardware 00:19:16.500 --> 00:19:19.140 design was the real work, and the math was just 00:19:19.140 --> 00:19:21.259 data entry. Even though the hardware literally 00:19:21.259 --> 00:19:23.440 cannot fly without the math telling it where 00:19:23.440 --> 00:19:26.359 to go. Precisely. It took the distance of history 00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:28.539 to give us the perspective to see how absolutely 00:19:28.539 --> 00:19:31.700 foundational her labor truly was. Katherine Johnson 00:19:31.700 --> 00:19:33.779 wasn't just doing the math for the engineers. 00:19:34.099 --> 00:19:36.019 She was the architect of the reality they were 00:19:36.019 --> 00:19:38.619 trying to build. Without her mapping the geometry 00:19:38.619 --> 00:19:41.259 of space, the rockets are just very expensive 00:19:41.259 --> 00:19:43.500 fireworks. It fundamentally changes the way you 00:19:43.500 --> 00:19:45.660 look at major achievements. When we zoom out 00:19:45.660 --> 00:19:48.299 and look at her whole journey, it is just staggering. 00:19:48.619 --> 00:19:51.700 You have a 10 -year -old girl forced by the absolute 00:19:51.700 --> 00:19:54.220 worst of systemic barriers to travel across the 00:19:54.190 --> 00:19:58.009 just to attend high school. Yeah. And she grows 00:19:58.009 --> 00:20:01.029 up to map the path to the moon. And she does 00:20:01.029 --> 00:20:04.150 it not through loud theatrical rebellion but 00:20:04.150 --> 00:20:07.369 through relentless undeniable competence by simply 00:20:07.369 --> 00:20:09.910 insisting day after day that she belonged in 00:20:09.910 --> 00:20:12.000 the room where the math was being done. Her legacy 00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:14.779 proves that the most critical work in any massive 00:20:14.779 --> 00:20:17.700 human endeavor is almost always being done quietly. 00:20:18.220 --> 00:20:20.440 It's the backup charts. It's the triple checked 00:20:20.440 --> 00:20:22.900 math. It's the labor done without the expectation 00:20:22.900 --> 00:20:25.920 of initial glory. She established the absolute 00:20:25.920 --> 00:20:28.240 standard for human verification. Which brings 00:20:28.240 --> 00:20:31.059 us right back to where we started. That astronaut, 00:20:31.400 --> 00:20:34.180 John Glenn, sitting in the capsule, refusing 00:20:34.180 --> 00:20:36.779 to trust the machine until Katherine Johnson 00:20:36.779 --> 00:20:39.299 checked the math. And I think this raises an 00:20:39.299 --> 00:20:41.319 important question and leaves us with a critical 00:20:41.319 --> 00:20:44.180 thought for today. What's that? Well, Katherine 00:20:44.180 --> 00:20:47.319 Johnson was the human verifier for the very first 00:20:47.319 --> 00:20:50.000 generation of artificial intelligence and digital 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:52.839 computers. Right. Today, you and I are rushing 00:20:52.839 --> 00:20:56.079 headlong into an era where we hand over our driving, 00:20:56.259 --> 00:20:58.799 our medical diagnoses, our financial systems, 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:02.539 and our major societal decisions to complex algorithms 00:21:02.539 --> 00:21:05.339 and AI black boxes. Yeah, we just trust them 00:21:05.339 --> 00:21:07.640 blindly. We do. We don't really know how the 00:21:07.640 --> 00:21:09.680 machines are getting their answers anymore. So 00:21:09.680 --> 00:21:11.710 as you look around at our modern world, have 00:21:11.710 --> 00:21:14.630 to ask yourself, who are the invisible Katherine 00:21:14.630 --> 00:21:17.490 Johnsons of our current era? Who is doing the 00:21:17.490 --> 00:21:19.450 math in the background, insisting on seeing the 00:21:19.450 --> 00:21:21.710 data, and ensuring that the machines don't lead 00:21:21.710 --> 00:21:23.970 us into the dark? Because right now, society 00:21:23.970 --> 00:21:26.750 is strapping itself into the rocket, and someone 00:21:26.750 --> 00:21:27.890 needs to be checking the math.