2020年经济学人 数学家凯瑟琳·戈布尔·约翰逊(1)

Katherine Goble Johnson, NASA mathematician¹, died on february 24th, aged² 101

美国宇航局数学家凯瑟琳·戈布尔·约翰逊于2月24日逝世，享年101岁。

As she ran her eyes over the flight-test calculation sheets the engineer had given her, katherine Goble (as she then was) could see there was something wrong with them. The engineer had made an error with a square root. And it was going to be tricky³ to tell him so. It was her first day on this assignment, when she and another girl had been picked out of the computing⁴ pool at the langley aeronautical⁵ laboratory, later part of NASA, to help the all-male flight research unit.

当凯瑟琳·戈布尔浏览工程师给她的飞行测试计算表时，她(当时的她)发现计算表有问题。工程师犯了一个平方根的错误。要告诉他这一点是很棘手的。此前，她和另一个女孩从兰利航空实验室的计算员工中被挑选出来，这是她第一天参与这个任务，协助这个全部由男性构成的飞行研究单位的工作。该实验室后来成为NASA的一部分。

But there were other, more significant snags than simply being new. Most obviously, he was a man and she was a woman. In 1953 women did not question men. They stayed in their place, in this case usually the computing pool, tapping away on their monroe desktop⁶ calculators or filling sheets with figures, she as neatly⁷ turned out as all the rest. Men were the grand designers, the engineers; the women were "computers in skirts", who were handed a set of equations and exhaustively, diligently⁸ checked them. Men were not interested in things as small as that.

但除了作为新员工，还有其他更重要的障碍。最明显的是，工程师是男人，而她是女人。在1953年，女性不能质疑男性。女性呆在他们的地方，在这里通常是计算部门，在他们的门罗台式计算器上敲来敲去，或者在表格上填上数字，凯瑟琳和其他人一样熟练。男人是伟大的设计师，工程师；这些女人是“穿着裙子的计算机”，他们会拿到一组方程式，并竭尽全力地、勤勉地仔细检查。男人对这么小的事情不感兴趣。

And, most difficult of all, she was coloured, and he was white. The lab might be recruiting black mathematicians⁹, but the door was not fully¹⁰ open; her pool was called "coloured computing", and was segregated¹¹. As she sat down with the new team that morning, the men next to her had moved away. She was not sure why, but the world was like that, and she refused to be bothered by it. Since the café was segregated, she ate at her desk.

最艰难的是，凯瑟琳是有色人种，而这个工程师是白人。实验室可能会招募黑人数学家，但是这扇门并没有完全打开；她的部门被称为“有色计算机部门”，并被隔离。那天早上，当凯瑟琳和新团队坐在一起时，她旁边的人已经搬走时了。她不知道为什么，但世界就是这样，她拒绝被它困扰。由于咖啡馆是种族隔离的，所以她在自己的办公桌前吃饭。

1 mathematician   

n.数学家

参考例句：

• The man with his back to the camera is a mathematician.背对着照相机的人是位数学家。
• The mathematician analyzed his figures again.这位数学家再次分析研究了他的这些数字。

2 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

3 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

4 computing   

n.计算

参考例句：

• to work in computing 从事信息处理
• Back in the dark ages of computing, in about 1980, they started a software company. 早在计算机尚未普及的时代（约1980年），他们就创办了软件公司。

5 aeronautical   

adj.航空（学）的

参考例句：

• Many of the pilots were to achieve eminence in the aeronautical world. 这些飞行员中很多人将会在航空界声名显赫。 来自辞典例句
• The advent of aircraft brought with it aeronautical engineering. 宇宙飞船的问世导致了航天工程的出现。 来自辞典例句

6 desktop   

n.桌面管理系统程序；台式

参考例句：

• My computer is a desktop computer of excellent quality.我的计算机是品质卓越的台式计算机。
• Do you know which one is better,a laptop or a desktop?你知道哪一种更好，笔记本还是台式机？

7 neatly   

adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地

参考例句：

• Sailors know how to wind up a long rope neatly.水手们知道怎样把一条大绳利落地缠好。
• The child's dress is neatly gathered at the neck.那孩子的衣服在领口处打着整齐的皱褶。

8 diligently   

ad.industriously;carefully

参考例句：

• He applied himself diligently to learning French. 他孜孜不倦地学法语。
• He had studied diligently at college. 他在大学里勤奋学习。

9 mathematicians   

数学家( mathematician的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? 你以为我们的数学家做不到这一点吗？ 来自英汉文学
• Mathematicians can solve problems with two variables. 数学家们可以用两个变数来解决问题。 来自哲学部分

10 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

11 segregated   

分开的； 被隔离的

参考例句：

• a culture in which women are segregated from men 妇女受到隔离歧视的文化
• The doctor segregated the child sick with scarlet fever. 大夫把患猩红热的孩子隔离起来。