4 ms·

Mapping with the stars: Nuns instrumental in Vatican celestial survey

ortusdux 11y ago
This reminds me of the Harvard Computers. The Memory Palace podcast did an amazing episode about them titled "400,000 Stars". http://thememorypalace.us/2014/03/400000-stars/ http://thememorypalace.us/2014/03/400000-stars/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Computers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Computers
objclxt 11y ago
> At the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, for example, they even were referred to as "lady computers" I don't know how accurate that is - in the early 1900s I believe the majority of computers were women, so the distinction wouldn't have been made.
jlev 11y ago
Read the Nine Billion Names of God, by Arthur C Clarke, for a reason why they might have been counting. http://www.sffaudio.com/podcasts/TheNineBillionNamesOfGodByArthurC.Clarke.pdf http://www.sffaudio.com/podcasts/TheNineBillionNamesOfGodByA...
f2f 11y ago
at los alamos during the manhattan project there were whole divisions comprised entirely of women who did the physics calculations. they were called the "computers". http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/computing-power-used-to-be-measured-in-kilo-girls/280633/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/comput...
johansch 11y ago
Celebrating women's "important contributions to history" feels so weird in contexts like these. They were human computers, following very specific instructions sequence by sequence. Why would this be something to celebrate? Maybe I'm just extrapolating from the many similar stories from Bletchley Park. Still feels really weird to me, though. And before you accuse me of misogny: The reason I point this out is that there's surely more interesting historical news involving women (if gender is suddenly a critical factor) than people essentially doing mindless drudgery over and over again some time in the past?
- steve19 11y ago
  It's an interesting story that would have also been interesting (to me) if it had been male monks dedicating over a decade of work to cataloging stars manually.

This reminds me of the Harvard Computers. The Memory Palace podcast did an amazing episode about them titled "400,000 Stars". http://thememorypalace.us/2014/03/400000-stars/ http://thememorypalace.us/2014/03/400000-stars/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Computers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Computers

objclxt 11y ago

> At the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, for example, they even were referred to as "lady computers" I don't know how accurate that is - in the early 1900s I believe the majority of computers were women, so the distinction wouldn't have been made.

jlev 11y ago

Read the Nine Billion Names of God, by Arthur C Clarke, for a reason why they might have been counting. http://www.sffaudio.com/podcasts/TheNineBillionNamesOfGodByArthurC.Clarke.pdf http://www.sffaudio.com/podcasts/TheNineBillionNamesOfGodByA...

f2f 11y ago

at los alamos during the manhattan project there were whole divisions comprised entirely of women who did the physics calculations. they were called the "computers". http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/computing-power-used-to-be-measured-in-kilo-girls/280633/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/comput...

johansch 11y ago

Celebrating women's "important contributions to history" feels so weird in contexts like these. They were human computers, following very specific instructions sequence by sequence. Why would this be something to celebrate? Maybe I'm just extrapolating from the many similar stories from Bletchley Park. Still feels really weird to me, though. And before you accuse me of misogny: The reason I point this out is that there's surely more interesting historical news involving women (if gender is suddenly a critical factor) than people essentially doing mindless drudgery over and over again some time in the past?

steve19 11y ago
It's an interesting story that would have also been interesting (to me) if it had been male monks dedicating over a decade of work to cataloging stars manually.