Ever wonder how the blue dot on your phone actually knows where you are? Before GPS was a technology, it was a massive mathematical problem — and Dr. Gladys West was the hidden figure who solved it.
In this episode, we dive into the life of Dr. Gladys West, a Black mathematician whose work for the U.S. Navy changed human navigation forever. From her beginnings on a rural Virginia farm to working with room-sized computers, Dr. West spent decades crunching complex satellite data to calculate the exact shape of the Earth (the "geoid"). Without her precise calculations, modern satellite positioning systems simply would not work.
We break down:
• How Dr. West overcame systemic barriers to become a leading mathematician in the 1950s.
• The mind-boggling mathematics behind modeling Earth's gravitational variations.
• Why her contributions remained unsung for decades before her induction into the Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame.
Listen in to discover the unsung story of the tech pioneer who made modern navigation possible.
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