Category Archives: 20th Century

Reaching for the Moon: The Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Book 250 pages Level: all audiences Reaching for the Moon was written by Katherine Johnson and published in 2019 (by Simon & Schuster: Athenium Books for Young Readers), when she was one over hundred years old.  Johnson was one of the NASA “computers” featured in the best-selling book Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women who Helped Launch Our Nation Into Space and the popular movie Hidden Figures.  The book discusses Johnson’s work at NASA, but its primary focus is on her family, her Christian faith, and how those came together to help her and other African-Americans succeed during a time when they lived under both legal segregation and a constant threat of violence. From the publisher: The inspiring autobiography of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, who helped launch Apollo 11. As a young girl, Katherine Johnson showed an exceptional aptitude for math. In school she quickly skipped ahead several grades and was soon studying complex equations with … Continue reading →

Hidden Figures

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Book 368 pages Level: high school and above Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race is a best-selling book (made into a major motion picture) about the world of engineering, science, and mathematics.  The central figures in the book are four African American women—Dorothy Vaughn, Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Christine Darden—who were mathematicians, engineers, and computer programmers working at NASA Langley during the “Space Race”.  All four were people of faith, active in their churches.  Author Shetterly includes regular mention of church in telling the story of these women and of Langley. Indeed, a church (First Baptist Church in Hampton Virginia) appears in the very first sentence of the book. From the publisher, HarperCollins: Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding … Continue reading →

Katherine G. Johnson: Of NASA and of the Presbyterian church

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Articles (3) Approx. 500 words each article Level: all audiences These are articles about Katherine G. Johnson, published in 2015-2017 by the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.  Johnson is one of the NASA mathematicians whose stories were told in the movie and book Hidden Figures. Click here for “PC(USA) member and NASA mathematician receives Presidential Medal of Freedom” Click here for “Real life ‘Hidden Figures’ mathematician is longtime Presbyterian” Click here for “Katherine G. Johnson: NASA Mathematician and Dedicated Presbyterian” Click here for “Presbyterian mathematician, Medal of Freedom winner Katherine Johnson dies at age 101”    

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Marion Lee Johnson: “A Hidden Figure”

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article 500 words Level: all audiences This short article in The Christian Recorder (African Methodist Episcopal Church), discusses Marion Lee Johnson, a mathematician with NASA who worked on the Apollo program and who is currently a speaker on STEM subjects.  The article was written in response to the 2017 movie Hidden Figures.  The article notes that “Sister Marion Lee Johnson has been an active member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church since 1969 and a member of Mount Zion AME Church of Plainfield, New Jersey since 1985.” Click here for the article.    

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‘Hidden Figures’ and the A.M.E. Church

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article 300 words Level: all audiences This is a very brief notice from the website of the Third District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.  It calls attention to the film Hidden Figures, based on the book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly.  The article states: The film… is the story of the three African-American mathematicians whose knowledge helped John Glenn to orbit the Earth. Two of the three phenomenal women were members of the AME Church, one was a graduate of Wilberforce University and two of them grew up in the 3rd District. Both Mary Winston Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan were members of AME churches. Click here to access the article.    

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Strong Force – The Story of Physicist Shirley Ann Jackson

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Book 110 pages Level: all audiences This book by Diane O’Connell is a biography of Shirley Ann Jackson, the first African-American woman to obtain a Ph.D. from MIT (her field of study was nuclear physics). She went on to work at places including Fermilab, CERN, Stanford, and Bell Laboratories, and in the 1990’s was made head of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She later became president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. While the book is primarily about Jackson’s scientific career and the challenges she faced, it does discuss the role that church played in Jackson’s life, and her “strong belief in God”. Strong Force is published by the Joseph Henry Press, an imprint of the National Academies Press, and by Scholastic. It is written at a middle school level. The following is from Scholastic: Shirley Ann Jackson sees the unseen. She’s an expert in the invisible particles that make up everything in the universe, including you. Shirley Ann Jackson is a … Continue reading →

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the Hubble–Lemaître law

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article (2) 1900 words (total) Level: all audiences In October 2018 the International Astronomical Union voted overwhelmingly to change the name of the “Hubble law” (relating distance and velocity in the universe’s expansion) to the “Hubble–Lemaître law”, thus including the name of Fr. Georges Lemaître in the law.  These are two articles from the prominent journals Science and Nature discussing the IAU vote. Click here for an article on the vote from Nature. Click here for an article on the vote from Science.  

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The Montessori Method

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Book 376 pages Level: high school and above This book by Maria Montessori was originally published in Italian in 1909 and translated into English in 1912 under the title of Scientific Pedagogy as Applied to Child Education in the Children’s Houses (the “Children’s Houses” being education programs for children in the slum tenements of Rome, run under the direction of Montessori).  J. McV. Hunt, in a 1964 introduction to The Montessori Method, said that “Montessori was reforming pedagogy and basing her innovations on her own clinical observations of children”, as compared to American educators such as John Dewey, who was “attempting to foster social reform in schools… [based on] reformed Darwinism”.  According to Hunt, interest in Montessori’s work surged following publication of The Montessori Method, owing to her successes in Rome.  But then that interest rapidly waned, owing to the fact that Montessori’s work clashed with the increasing popularity of ideas such as the relative unimportance of school experience for … Continue reading →

Pioneering Women in Computer Science: Sr. Mary Kenneth Keller

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article 350 words Level: all audiences A short article by Denise Gürer on Sr. Mary Kenneth Keller, BVM, one of the first two people, and the first woman, to receive a Ph.D. in computer science in the U.S.*  The article is an excerpt from a longer article in which Gürer discusses the work of various women who contributed to the field of computer science. [Click here to download PDF] *Gürer’s article states that Sr. Keller was “probably” the first, but a post by Ralph London on the blog of the Communications of the ACM, the journal in which Gürer first published her article, argues that Keller was indeed the first, along with Irving Tang, as both received their degrees in June 1965.    

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Who Discovered the Expanding Universe

Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Article 22 pages Level: university Historians of science Helge Kragh and Robert W. Smith provide an overview of the discovery of the expanding universe and who might be credited with making that discovery.  They argue that, while Edwin Hubble is generally credited with the discovery of the expansion of the universe, and while a number of different scientists did in fact contribute to the discovery in significant ways, in fact Fr. Georges Lemaître discovered the expansion of the universe, insofar as he gave theoretical and observational reasons for it. (Lemaître would go on to become a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1936, and to serve as its president from 1960 until his death in 1966). Hubble, meanwhile was ambivilant towards the whole concept of an expanding universe. Kragh and Smith also discuss why Hubble is credited with the discovery. They trace the history of how Hubble’s role in the discovery was elevated, “at the expense of everyone … Continue reading →