The death of the famous American mathematician, Katherine Johnson, was recently announced. She was credited with calculating rocket trajectories for the United States’ early space missions. She got my attention for three reasons. One, she was African-American. Two, she was a brilliant female mathematician who distinguished herself in space missions, which used to be dominated by male scientists. Three, she reminded me of the girls in my class, who were Math-smart and often succeeded in beating me to the first position.
The passing away of Johnson serves to provide answers to some questions that I have always wanted to ask. Why? In February, there was this news report on astronomy and man’s historic landing on the moon. This got me thinking about a few things. One was how astronomers made accurate calculations of distances in the planetary system. The other was how mathematicians calculated the distance to the moon before man landed there. I also wondered how they were able to get their data pin-tip right. It was at this time Johnson’s death was announced and I became aware of the role she played in space missions.
There are some interesting things about Johnson. They could be sources of encouragement to a girl-child out there, who might be one of the 13 million Nigerian children that the United Nations identified as out-of-school children. Regarding Johnson, the Administrator of the US space research outfit, NASA, Jim Bridenstine, said the organisation would “never forget Katherine Johnson’s courage and the milestones we could not have reached without her.”
Bridenstine added that Johnson was one of the “computers” who solved equations by hand during NASA’s early years. It’s noteworthy that Johnson and other black women initially worked in a racially segregated computing unit at NASA. For the younger ones who don’t know or understand what that is, it means Johnson worked in a separate room. She had to use a separate convenience, too, because her fellow workers, whose skins were white, were considered superior to her. Some of them weren’t even as brilliant as she was.
Johnson’s work focused on airplanes and other researches at first. But her work eventually shifted to America’s space programme. In an interview, she once said “Our office computed all the (rocket) trajectories. You tell me when and where you want it to come down and I will tell you where and when and how to launch it.”
In 1961, Johnson did trajectory analysis for the first rocket that carried an American astronaut to space. The next year, she manually verified the calculations of a NASA computer which plotted another American’s orbits around the planet. She died at the beautiful age of 101 years. In the event, her story takes me back to the time when I used to hold scientists, especially mathematicians, in awe to the awe. With a head for Mathematics my journey would have followed a different trajectory. I would probably have become a geologist and writer. This is because in my early teens I met a geologist who also happened to read lots of novels, something I actively did at the time.
Nowadays the tags, journalist, political scientist and award-winning playwright or fiction writer are what describe me. The last tag was as a result of the decision I made to become a writer when I was a seven-year-old boy reading children’s story books in my school library. The second tag happened because the Youth Corps member (now the well-known Chief Doyin Fakoya from Ogun State) who taught me ‘Government’ in secondary school read Political Science, a course that until then I never heard of. That’s how good role models can affect young children.
Meanwhile, my journey has painfully been stalked by Mathematics. How? Math was the reason I ended up in the third position, not the first position as evident in the report cards prepared fortnightly in my first year in elementary school. Math was the reason I also clinched the third position in the first promotional examination. Math was the reason I was stuck between the fourth and fifth position, not first or third positions, when I was in secondary school.
Incidentally, two of my classmates who usually occupied the first three positions due to the higher marks they scored in Mathematics were girls. Math was the only reason I didn’t choose science subjects in secondary school. I had one of the best three WASC results in my set. I was the first to secure admission to the university and the first to be awarded a Ph.D. Looking back, I wouldn’t have traded Political Science for any other course. I’m proud of it, just as I’m proud of being a storyteller which is what I feel I really am. It’s how I proudly introduce myself: “My name is Tunji Ajibade. I am a storyteller”, which generally causes people to laugh. But my experience with Mathematics has continued to make me take curious peeps at mathematicians when I come across one.
Not long ago, I was engaged in a conversation with this young lady who was studying Mathematics in the university. As usual, when she mentioned her course I genuinely said, “Oh, Mathematics people” in a way that always makes Math-smart people laugh. This lady laughed. Then I went into a monologue about how I didn’t have the head either for the sciences or mathematics and how I had often wondered how those who were in those fields enjoyed themselves. The lady’s response has remained indelible in my mind. It made me see what I didn’t consider before then.
Also, I told her that for me writing stories was interesting, what I considered the height of enjoyment, and that I had always thought scientists and mathematicians must live a boring life. But the lady said she found Mathematics interesting, she enjoyed it, and she guessed she found it as interesting as I did storytelling. Her simple response got me thinking. I think the impact was made possible by the simplicity of her response. So, people could find science or mathematics interesting just as I find storytelling interesting. It’s a prospect I still haven’t completely grasped, just as I haven’t thought that mathematicians too could wonder what those us who aren’t in their line find interesting in our fields. I suppose this points to how much a stranger I am to the sciences and mathematics.
As for space scientists in particular, I find it intriguing the time they spend with those mechanical objects and substances. How they figured out how to design those capsules that took man to space as well as other paraphernalia amaze me even more. Being a creative writer myself, the creative mind that makes these things possible make me respect scientists. Yet I view them as somewhat surreal. That scientists generally are able to do amazing stuff, thereby turning our world on its head makes me think they must be from another planet. I know I have this perception because I don’t get the hang of what makes it easy for them to do what they do. Well, I’m not sure there’s much that scientists could do to demystify themselves to me.
I lost touch with Mathematics as a child. But I caught up with other angles very early, especially the importance of education, a few of them due to the influence of role models. Johnson is a role model wherever her name is mentioned. As a little black girl in a rabidly racist America, what she was good at eventually made her rise to stand out in her generation. She became a source of pride to her race. One African American writer said Johnson’s story gave African Americans a new way to look at black history, women’s history and American history.
I think this is a significant point because Johnson is the first African American I hear of in relation to space programmes which have always been male-dominated. These days when efforts are being made in Nigeria to make more secondary school pupils to show interest in Mathematics, as well as to get the girl-child into school, Johnson’s story could make a huge impact. I reckon none of us can tell; we can only guess, how far Johnson’s picture on the wall of a classroom with the tag ‘Female Mathematician Who Helped Man Go To Space’ could make one girl-child dream dreams. When she becomes something, she’s more than likely to raise children who’ll become something. That’s one effect of getting the Nigerian girl-child educated.
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