4 ms·

We also got to the moon without calculators. (This used to be well-known but may not be anymore - I'm not sure. Forgive me if I'm saying something obvious.) Pre

by _moof 4y ago

We also got to the moon without calculators. (This used to be well-known but may not be anymore - I'm not sure. Forgive me if I'm saying something obvious.) Pretty incredible how unnecessary most of our "technology" really is. Can't find it now but one of my all-time favorite engineering memes goes something like, "modern engineer, cries when Matlab crashes; Roman engineer, built aqueducts by eyeballing them."

Melatonic 4y ago
We had computers - they were just teams of women crunching numbers in a room somewhere
- imwillofficial 4y ago
  It wasn’t only women. Not cool totally cut out a major group of people who contributed to such a milestone.
  - alar44 4y ago
    I love the fact that this so so dear to you that you feel you must comment but fail to mention who you think should be included.
    - imwillofficial 4y ago
      An entire gender group that contributed.
      - alar44 4y ago
        Which one?
        imwillofficial 4y ago
        Men, are you saying no men contributed to calculations?
  - rascul 4y ago
    It may not have been only women, but > In 1935, the first group of female human computers were hired. Before electronic computers, all mathematical equations and computations would be done by hand by people, often known as human computers. With the advent of World War II, many male employees at NACA left to fight overseas. More and more women were needed to fill their roles, and soon African American women were hired to help with the shortfall. > These African American women were sent to a segregated computing section known as the West Area Computing Unit, which was the center of the 2016 movie Hidden Figures. In April 1942, a memo was passed around stating that, “The engineers admit themselves that the girl computers do the work more rapidly and accurately than they could.” The women computers were becoming increasingly more valuable and doing incredible work along the way. https://www.womenshistory.org/exhibits/women-nasa https://www.womenshistory.org/exhibits/women-nasa
hotpotamus 4y ago
I mean, if we're talking about Apollo, they had IBM mainframes and I believe the Apollo guidance computer was actually the first computer made of integrated circuits which was crucial to fitting it within the power/weight budget. I'll bet a lot of work was still done with slide rules though.

by _moof 4y ago

Melatonic 4y ago

We had computers - they were just teams of women crunching numbers in a room somewhere

imwillofficial 4y ago
It wasn’t only women. Not cool totally cut out a major group of people who contributed to such a milestone.
- alar44 4y ago
  I love the fact that this so so dear to you that you feel you must comment but fail to mention who you think should be included.
  - imwillofficial 4y ago
    An entire gender group that contributed.
    - alar44 4y ago
      Which one?
      - imwillofficial 4y ago
        Men, are you saying no men contributed to calculations?
- rascul 4y ago
  It may not have been only women, but > In 1935, the first group of female human computers were hired. Before electronic computers, all mathematical equations and computations would be done by hand by people, often known as human computers. With the advent of World War II, many male employees at NACA left to fight overseas. More and more women were needed to fill their roles, and soon African American women were hired to help with the shortfall. > These African American women were sent to a segregated computing section known as the West Area Computing Unit, which was the center of the 2016 movie Hidden Figures. In April 1942, a memo was passed around stating that, “The engineers admit themselves that the girl computers do the work more rapidly and accurately than they could.” The women computers were becoming increasingly more valuable and doing incredible work along the way. https://www.womenshistory.org/exhibits/women-nasa https://www.womenshistory.org/exhibits/women-nasa

hotpotamus 4y ago

I mean, if we're talking about Apollo, they had IBM mainframes and I believe the Apollo guidance computer was actually the first computer made of integrated circuits which was crucial to fitting it within the power/weight budget. I'll bet a lot of work was still done with slide rules though.