#mathematician

[mudwerks]

Tom Lehrer, the Harvard-trained mathematician whose wickedly iconoclastic songs made him a favorite satirist in the 1950s and ’60s on college campuses and in all the Greenwich Villages of the country, died on Saturday at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 97.

[forever70s]

Katherine Johnson, NASA "human computer" polymath, circa late 1970s

[illustratus]

Hypatia by Charles William Mitchell

[mathhombre]

Marion Walter's Theorem

Via Mathematics Learning FB page

"Marion's Theorem, also known as Marion Walter's Theorem, states that if you trisect each side of a triangle and connect each trisection point to the opposite vertex, the area of the resulting hexagon in the middle of the triangle is one-tenth the area of the original triangle. This theorem was named after Marion Walter, who discovered it while experimenting with Geometer's Sketchpad with a colleague. Today ( July 30) is 97th BIRTHDAY Anniversary to Marion Walter."

Had to dynamicize this, of course. Some other nice values besides trisecting...

Play in GeoGebra.

[abiwaif]

Allow me to let you in on a cool secret:

1 × 8 + 1 = 9

12 × 8 + 2 = 98

123 × 8 + 3 = 987

1234 × 8 + 4 = 9876

12345 × 8 + 5 = 98765

123456 × 8 + 6 = 987654

1234567 × 8 + 7 = 9876543

12345678 × 8 + 8 = 98765432

123456789 × 8 + 9 = 987654321

[afrotumble]

Katherine Johnson was an African-American mathematician whose work was fundamental at NASA. Her precise calculations helped ensure the success of the Mercury and Apollo space missions, including the historic Apollo 11 moon landing. Her life and work were immortalized in the film "Hidden Figures."

[blondebrainpowered]

Dr. Gladys West, the pioneering mathematician whose work laid the foundation for modern GPS technology passed away on January 17, 2026.

Dr. West was born in 1930 in Virginia. Despite the oppression of Jim Crow laws in the south, she was able to pursue higher education at Virginia State College (now named Virginia State University), obtaining bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics. In 1956, West was hired at what is now called the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, VA. Her focus during the 1970s and 1980s was creating accurate models of the Earth's shape based on satellite data, a complex task requiring the type of mathematical gymnastics that would make the average person dizzy. Those models later became the backbone for GPS. West worked at the Dahlgren center for 42 years, retiring in 1998. 

As has been the case with so many of the women, particularly those of color, behind tech and science breakthroughs in the US, West's work went largely uncelebrated for decades. After submitting a short biography of her accomplishments to a sorority function in 2018, members of Alpha Kappa Alpha helped West to receive belated recognition for her contributions. She was inducted into the US Air Force Space and Missiles Pioneers Hall of Fame and honored as Female Alumna of the Year by the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Awards in that same year. The Guardian published an interview with West in 2020 that shared some insights on her journey, including a note that when West was out and about, she favored paper maps over the technology she indirectly helped create.