Synopsis: Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson is an African-American physicist and mathematician. She worked for NASA, helping the first American orbit around Earth and the first man to walk on the moon. She retired from NASA after over 30 years of service. In 2015, she received the government's highest honor for a civilian called the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Early Life
Born in 1918 in the little town of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Johnson was a research mathematician. She was simply fascinated by numbers. She was smart too, and by the time she was 10 years old, she was a high school freshman. This was a truly amazing achievement in a time when school for African-Americans normally stopped at eighth grade. Many African American kids had to stop going to school even sooner than that.
Her father was determined that his bright little girl would have a chance to meet her potential. He drove his family to Institute, West Virginia, where she could continue her education through high school. Johnson sailed through school, graduating from college at age 18. Her skills at mathematics drew the attention of a young professor, W.W. Schiefflin Claytor.
"He said, 'You'd make a good research mathematician and I'm going to see that you're prepared,' she recalled.
"I said, 'Where will I get a job?'
"And he said, 'That will be your problem.'
"And I said, 'What do they do?'
"And he said, 'You'll find out.'"
With her teacher's encouragement, Johnson became ambitious. "In the back of my mind, I wanted to be a research mathematician."
On the way to fulfilling her dreams, she spent some time teaching. She wasn't passionate about her work but needed to pay the bills.
The "Computer" At NASA
Soon, she began working for the government space program that came before NASA, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA. NACA had taken the unusual step of hiring women for the tiresome and exact work of measuring and calculating the results of wind tunnel tests in 1935. In a time before the electronic computers we know today, these women were called "computers." During World War II, NACA started hiring African-American women as computers. They were so pleased with the results that, unlike many organizations, they kept the women computers at work after the war.
By 1953, the growing demands of early space research meant there were openings for African-American computers. That's where Katherine Johnson found the perfect place to put her mathematical skills to work.
As a computer, she calculated the flight path for Alan Shepard, the first American in space.
"We wrote our own textbook, because there was no other text about space," she said. "We just started from what we knew. We had to go back to geometry and figure all of this stuff out. Inasmuch as I was in at the beginning, I was one of those lucky people."
Johnson may have been lucky, but it was her skill at geometry that allowed her to make such a great impact. "Early on, when they said they wanted the capsule to come down at a certain place, they were trying to compute when it should start," Johnson remembered. "I said, 'Let me do it. You tell me when you want it and where you want it to land, and I'll do it backwards and tell you when to take off.'"
Johnson was respected by her coworkers. Even after NASA began using electronic computers, astronaut John Glenn requested that Johnson personally recheck the calculations made by the new electronic computers before his flight aboard Friendship 7. It was on that mission that he became the first American to orbit the Earth.
"You could do much more, much faster on computer," Johnson said. "But when they went to computers, they called over and said, 'tell her to check and see if the computer trajectory they had calculated was correct.' So I checked it and it was correct."
Life After NASA
Johnson continued to work at NASA until 1986. Her work was important to the success of the Apollo moon landing program and the start of the Space Shuttle program.
Johnson received honorary degrees throughout her career. In 1967, she was awarded the NASA Lunar Orbiter Spacecraft and Operations team award for her navigation work. On November 24, 2015, she received the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President Barack Obama.
Not bad, for a little girl from West Virginia. Coincidentally, that little girl was born on August 26: Women's Equality Day Read the paragraph introducing Katherine Johnson.
Synopsis: Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson is an African-American physicist and mathematician. She worked for NASA, helping the first American orbit around Earth and the first man to walk on the moon. She retired from NASA after over 30 years of service. In 2015, she received the government's highest honor for a civilian called the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
What does the author MOST LIKELY want the reader to think about Katherine Johnson based on this paragraph?
She has accomplished a lot in the fields of physics and mathematics.
She had other interests beyond the fields of physics and mathematics.
She preferred working on mathematics problems over physics problems.
She had few opportunities to show her skills in physics and mathematics.
1 answer
The author MOST LIKELY wants the reader to think about Katherine Johnson's accomplishments in the fields of physics and mathematics. The introduction highlights her work at NASA and her significant contributions, such as helping the first American orbit Earth and the first man to walk on the moon, as well as receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This indicates her achievements and impact in her fields. Therefore, the correct answer is:
She has accomplished a lot in the fields of physics and mathematics.
