Valarie Thomas
Valarie Thomas was born in Maryland in the month of May of 1943. When she was young, math and science was not encouraged of her, but soon she developed a fascination with the mysteries of technology. At eight years old, she borrowed a book from the library, called “The Boy’s First Book on Electronics.” Although, her father was also interested in electronics, he would not help her with any of the projects that were found in the book. For in the 1950s most parents and schools didn’t deem electronics and other scientific subjects to be a suitable career for women. Valerie attended an all-girls high school. While in high school, she decided to take accelerated math classes, she also continued to work on her technological ability as more of a curiosity.
After Thomas graduated from college, she finally got a chance to work on what she was interested in at Morgan State University. She became one of only two women in her class to graduate with a degree in physics. Thomas was an outstanding student; soon she accepted a position with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where she served as a mathematician and a data analyst. After staying diligent to her work, Valerie grew to be a valued NASA employee. In the 1970s she was soon asked to manage the “Landsat” project, which was the first satellite competent enough to transmit images from space to Earth.
In 1976, Thomas was present at a scientific symposium where she surveyed an exhibit displaying an illusion. The exhibit utilized concave mirrors to trick the onlooker into assuming that an illuminated bulb was glowing even after it had been unscrewed from the socket. She was so fascinated by what she observed that she believed this would be extensive if, ...
... middle of paper ...
...ossessed with three dimensional attributes. The optical effect may be explained by the fact that the human eyes see an object from two viewpoints separated laterally by about six centimeters. The two views show slightly different spatial relationships between near and near distant objects and the visual process fuses these stereoscopic views to a single three dimensional impression. The same parallax view of an object may be experienced upon reflection of an object seen from a concave mirror." (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4229761.html).
Work on the illusion transmitter had to fade into insignificance, until her retirement from NASA in 1995, she had a very prosperous career at the office.
She had served in such positions as project manager for the Space Physics Analysis Network (SPAN), and not long ago an linked chief of the Space Science Data Operations Office.
Motion parallax gives females an estimate of the distance to display objects, yielding a size estimate that will conflict with illusory sixe estimates generated by forced-perspective and Ebbinghaus illusions.
...e to save the day. She made a new web that caught everyones eye and changed the
The Sally Ride Science program is based in San Diego, California and is also partnered with the University of California at San Diego. Well after Ride’s passing, this company has thrived to help encourage and educate the generation of tomorrow. The Sally Ride Science website states that, “The goal is to help educators build students’ STEM literacy and make connections between what students are learning and the STEM fields that are expected to experience rapid job growth in the coming decades” (Sally Ride Science). In addition to the main program, the Sally Ride Science Junior Academy was launched in 2016 to help middle and high school students participate in STEAM organizations and activities throughout the San Diego area. Sally Ride’s influence not only helped to benefitted these student, but she helped to break down a barrier for women everywhere. In a USA Today article written by Mary Marklein, “Since her historic mission, 55 women have flown in space with NASA” (Marklein). Thanks to Ride making history as the first woman to lift off into space, she opened the door many other women to do the same. Not only that, but she set the standard for future generations of female teachers, physicists and
her work. Loving what she did and devoting herself to the sciences is what made
Dr. Sally Kristen Ride was born in Encino, California on May 26th, 1951. Growing up, Sally was considered a tomboy. She spent most of her time playing football and baseball with the neighborhood boys. As Sally grew older, she found a love for tennis and science fiction novels. In high school, she studied chemistry, physics, trigonometry, and calculus. Sally started her first year of college at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and then transferred to Stanford University in California. At Stanford, Sally’s main studies were english and physics. After graduation Sally entered Stanford’s Master’s program specializing in astrophysics. It was during this that Sally heard that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) were looking for young scientists to become mission specialists. She noticed that NASA was encouraging women to apply. Sally applied and seemed to fit all of the requirements. She was asked to report to ...
Blasting off into space was once an all-male’s game. But on the heels of such trailblazers as Sally Ride, engineer and inventor Ellen Ochoa became part of growing breed of NASA female astronauts who have since helped change all that. Ellen Ochoa, a veteran astronaut, is the 11th director of the Johnson Space Center. She is JSC’s first Hispanic director, and its second female director. In 1993, she made history by becoming the first Hispanic woman from any country to travel in space. She would follow up this journey with three more space flights in 1994, 1999 and 2001, logging more than 700 hours in space. Despite being rejected two times from NASA’s Training Program,
Over the years since its beginning, the American space program has executed many major successful projects that were lead mainly by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, in which America completed without the assistance of other countries. Perhaps the most well-known feat of NASA was the world’s first moon landing, performed by Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin Jr., which occurred on July 20th, 1969 (Andrews). This was an outstanding achievement considering that NASA had competed against the Soviet Union in order to put the first man on the moon and came out on top even though the Soviet Union had had a head start. But even though the moon landing is the most well-known, other projects have produced far more useful results. For instance, the Hubble Space Telescope is considered to be “one of the finest research tools in astronomical history,” and the 44 foot-long telescope was sent into space on April 24, 1990; however, the telescope initially had a probl...
Computers are a magnificent feat of technology. They have grown from simple calculators to machines with many functions and abilities. Computers have become so common that almost every home has at least one computer, and schools find them a good source for information and education for their students (Hafner, Katie, unknown). Computers have created new careers and eliminated others and have left a huge impact on our society. The invention of the computer has greatly affected the arts, the business world, and society and history in many different areas, but to understand how great these changes are, it is necessary to take a look at the origins of the computer.
Ever since I was a child, I have had a great interest for the automotive industry. From car trivia to novel innovations, my innate passion for the automotive industry has always made me research the minutest detail of every vehicle that interested me. Since elementary school I would draw sketches of cars which incorporated technology which were unheard of at that time; novel devices such as electrochromic windshields, HUD displays, and wind turbines which would constantly re-generate electricity for the car. While growing up, my hobbies largely consisted of constructing countless Lego and Meccano sets, and repairing my mom’s 19 year-old car. In middle school, math and science were my favorite subjects: applying science and mathematics to solve real-world problems has fascinated me and I have also taken further steps to reach my goals. By the age of thirteen I devised a scaled model of a heliostat power plant, which successfully powered a light bulb. The mathematics beyond the focus points of parabolic dishes and thermodynamics was very advanced for my age, but I took up the challenge...
Relating to the Audience: Of all the majors people are looking forward to in this classroom, there is not a single major that has not benefited from the space program. Thus it is important to analyze the most glaring threat this messiah of a program is facing.
Douglas Engelbart, who was an electrical engineer and former naval radar technician, saw computers as more than number crunchers. “He knew from his days as a radar technician that screens could be used to display digital data, and therefore assumed it was possible to use a screen to display output from a computer (Mitchell).” It was a good ten years before Engelbart had the resources to build the devices that he had been thinking of for so long. Then invention that he knew would change the way computer w...
The fist computer, known as the abacus, was made of wood and parallel wires on which beads were strung. Arithmetic operations were performed when the beads were moved along the wire according to “programming” rules that had to be memorized by the user (Soma, 14). The second earliest computer, invented by Blaise Pascal in 1694, was a “digital calculating machine.” Pascal designed this first known digital computer to help his father, who was a tax collector. Pascal’s computer could only add numbers, and they had to be entered by turning dials (Soma, 32). It required a manual process like its ancestor, the abacus. Automation was introduced in the early 1800’s by a mathematics professor named Charles Babbage. He created an automatic calculation machine that was steam powered and stored up to 1000 50-digit numbers. Unlike its two earliest ancestors, Babbage’s invention was able to perform various operations. It relied on cards with holes punched in them, which are called “punch cards.” These cards carried out the programming and storing operations for the machine. Unluckily, Babbage’s creation flopped due to the lack of mechanical precision and the lack of demand for the product (Soma, 46). The machine could not operate efficiently because technology was t adequate to make the machine operate efficiently Computer interest dwindled for many years, and it wasn’t until the mid-1800’s that people became interested in them once again.
Long ago, people were simple and didn’t have many technologies. They used to take so much time in planning their projects, researching, and saving and recording their studying. Look around, this world changed a lot. There are cars, airplanes, computers, and many other technologies. Technology can be found everywhere, and we use depend on it a lot. One of the most important technologies is computers and laptops. Many people use them today in their daily lives and it eases many things for them.
If the nineteenth century was an era of the Industrial revolution in Europe, I would say that computers and Information Technology have dominated since the twentieth century. The world today is a void without computers, be it healthcare, commerce or any other field, the industry won’t thrive without Information Technology and Computer Science. This ever-growing field of technology has aroused interest in me since my childhood. After my twelfth grade, the inherent ardor I held for Computer Science motivated me to do a bachelors degree in Information Technology. Programming and Math, a paragon of logic and reasoning, have always been my favorite subjects since childhood.
computer. The electronic computer has been around for over a half-century, but its ancestors have been around for 2000 years. However, only in the last 40 years has it changed the American society. From the first wooden abacus to the latest high-speed microprocessor, the computer has changed nearly every aspect of people’s lives for the