Hidden Figures: The Real Story

More or Less: Behind the Stats

BBC

Business, Mathematics, Science, News Commentary, News

4.6 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2017

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Hidden Figures, the film, has been nominated for three awards at the Oscars and has been a box office hit in the US. It tells the little-known story of a group of African American women and their contribution to the space race in the 50s and 60s. We explore the history of how these women were recruited by Nasa and put to work on complex mathematical tasks – at a time when African Americans and women were far less likely to be employed in such jobs.

(Photo: Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson,in a scene from Hidden Figures. Credit: Hopper Stone/Twentieth Century Fox/AP)

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:05.0	Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service.
0:09.0	I'm Charlotte McDonald.
0:12.0	Mathematics might not ordinarily be considered a very sexy subject,
0:17.0	but it takes centre stage in a new film which has been a box office here in the US.
0:22.0	You have identification, huh?
0:24.4	NASA, sir.
0:25.9	I had no idea they hired.
0:27.5	Quite a few women working in the space program.
0:30.9	Hidden figures tells the story of a group of African-American women whose mathematical
0:35.4	calculations help put a man into space and ultimately onto the moon.
0:40.1	That's John Glenn.
0:41.3	What do you ladies do for NASA?
0:42.4	Calculate your trajectories.
0:44.0	You can't get anywhere without the numbers.
0:46.0	This week on the program, we're going to explore the contributions that women and in particular
0:50.5	African American women made to NASA.
0:53.6	My grandmother was born in 1907 in Covington, Georgia.
1:00.4	That's only 60 years after slavery ended.
1:04.0	She was fortunate enough to get
1:07.0	a four-year degree in chemistry from Talladega University, Alabama.
1:14.0	This is Duchess Harris.
	...

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