Growing up, I never really had heroes. When someone asked, people usually gave a family member or an athlete. These never really inspired me in the way I thought a hero should.
As I learned more about history, especially in mathematics, science and computers, I found that there were people whose achievements were insanely awesome. Moreover, I found heroes that contributed in huge ways to their fields in their lifetimes while being persecuted, challenged or mocked. These were people who accomplished things I can scarcely imagine even in a world that made their lives exceedingly difficult, even impossible.
Hypatia of Alexandria
Greek Neoplatonist philosopher in Roman Egypt and the last librarian of the Library of Alexandria.
Why was she badass?
Hypatia was the very first historically-noted female mathematician. She was the head of the Platonist school in Alexandria, where she taught philosophy and astronomy to any and all students, not differing between pagans, Christians and foreigners.
She is believed to have made significant contributions to the fields of mathematics, astronomy and physics. Hypatia is widely considered to be a universal genius, or polymath, like Leonardo da Vinci (who was born 1100 years later).
She must have been so respected!
She was. Well, until she became an unwilling point of contention between the governor of Alexandria and the (arguably) power-hungry Bishop of Alexandria. Hypatia was murdered by a Christian mob that accused her of witchcraft and godlessness. Her name discredited for nearly two thousand years, only in the past few centuries have her true accomplishments been widely accepted.
Growing up, I never really had heroes. When someone asked, people usually gave a family member or an athlete. These never really inspired me in the way I thought a hero should.
As I learned more about history, especially in mathematics, science and computers, I found that there were people whose achievements were insanely awesome. Moreover, I found heroes that contributed in huge ways to their fields in their lifetimes while being persecuted, challenged or mocked. These were people who accomplished things I can scarcely imagine even in a world that made their lives exceedingly difficult, even impossible.
Nikola Tesla
Serbian-American inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, and futurist.
Why was he badass?
LET ME COUNT THE FUCKING WAYS.
- Inventor of the Alternating Current electrical distribution system, which powers nearly all of the planet, making him father of the electric age
- Laid most of the groundwork for the invention of radio
- Came up with radar, x-ray technology and early concepts of cryogenics years ahead of their time (receiving little to none of the credit)
- the remote control, neon lighting, hydroelectric power generation, the electric motor, wireless communication, wireless fucking power distribution
- Oh, I am only scratching the surface. Read this.
I don’t call the man a genius, because it would skew the curve of planetary intelligence so much that almost everyone would be an idiot.
Nikola Tesla was a motherfucking phenomenon.
He must have been rich, right?
Thanks to douchebags like Thomas Edison and a world that cared only about money-making and nothing about the kind of revolutionary ideas that still shape our planet, Tesla spent most of his career broke. He died alone in a New York hotel room where he lived on milk, crackers and vivid hallucinations.
Growing up, I never really had heroes. When someone asked, people usually gave a family member or an athlete. These never really inspired me in the way I thought a hero should.
As I learned more about history, especially in mathematics, science and computers, I found that there were people whose achievements were insanely awesome. Moreover, I found heroes that contributed in huge ways to their fields in their lifetimes while being persecuted, challenged or mocked. These were people who accomplished things I can scarcely imagine even in a world that made their lives exceedingly difficult, even impossible.
Alan Turing
Alan Turing was a British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He is widely considered to be the father of modern computer science and artificial intelligence.
Why was he badass?
During World War II, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS) at Bletchley Park, Britain’s codebreaking centre. He was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised several techniques for breaking German code ciphers, including a machine that could figure out the settings for the German Enigma Machine. Turing decided to tackle the particularly difficult problem of German naval Enigma “because no one else was doing anything about it and I could have it to myself”.
After the war he worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he created one of the first designs for a stored-program computer, the ACE.
In 1948, Turing began writing a chess program for a computer that did not yet exist. In 1952, lacking a computer powerful enough to execute the program, Turing played a game in which he simulated the computer, taking about half an hour per move. In the recorded tests, his program won about half the games.
His Turing test was a significant and lasting contribution to the debate on artificial intelligence, which continues after more than half a century.
So, how did we thank him?
Turing, a homosexual, was charged with “gross indecency” in 1952, when homosexual acts were still illegal in the United Kingdom. He accepted treatment with female hormones (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison.
Turing died in 1954, just over two weeks before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. His death was most likely suicide.
In September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for “the appalling way he was treated”.
Growing up, I never really had heroes. When someone asked, people usually gave a family member or an athlete. These never really inspired me in the way I thought a hero should.
As I learned more about history, especially in mathematics, science and computers, I found that there were people whose achievements were insanely awesome. Moreover, I found heroes that contributed in huge ways to their fields in their lifetimes while being persecuted, challenged or mocked. These were people who accomplished things I can scarcely imagine even in a world that made their lives exceedingly difficult, even impossible.
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace
Ada was the only legitimate child of the English poet, Lord Byron. Born in the 1800s, she was part of a world that didn’t have many female scientists and mathematicians like her.
Why was she badass?
Among her many other accomplishments, Ada is widely considered to be the world’s first computer programmer.
In 1842–43, Ada translated an Italian manuscript on Charles Babbage’s proposed Analytical Engine, the very first design for a Turing-complete general purpose computer. With the article, she appended a set of notes explaining the Analytical Engine’s function.
This was difficult, considering other scientists did not actually grasp Babbage’s concept. The notes she left were longer than the manuscript itself and included, in complete detail, a method for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers with the Engine.
When the first complete Babbage Analytical Engine was completed in 2002, her method was found to successfully and efficiently run on it. Yes, the algorithm she wrote in the notes of a translation she did, for a computing device the likes of which had never been seen and that had not even been built and wouldn’t be tested until 150 years after her death.
Although it is a bit silly, I like to think that one can trace a long line of female computer programmers down from Ada Lovelace. I learned my first programming languages from my mother. I’ll tear apart any chauvinist who says girls can’t code.
