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Hidden Figures - Margot Lee Shetterly

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constant. She stayed focused on the<br />

research she had pursued since becoming<br />

an engineer in 1958: the investigation of<br />

the impact of roughness (such as rivets or<br />

grooves) on the surface of a moving<br />

object on the boundary layer, that thin<br />

layer of air that passes most closely over<br />

a moving object. Never one to miss an<br />

opportunity to continue her education,<br />

Mary took FORTRAN classes, teaching<br />

herself to program. The computers that<br />

had made long-distance spaceflight<br />

possible were also revolutionizing<br />

aeronautical research, a specialty known<br />

as computational fluid dynamics. The<br />

engineers now conducted experiments in<br />

their beloved wind tunnels and then<br />

compared the results with simulations on<br />

their computers. Just as the electronic<br />

machines had taken the place of human

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