Talk:Hidden Figures (book)

Katherine Johnson ... There is no middle initial G

My search of media reports and books show that she is very, very rarely called Katherine G. Johnson or Katherine Goble Johnson.

Goble was her married name while she was married to James Goble; that seems to be where the initial G comes from in a few sources.

But for most of her adult life she was married to James Johnson.

The Katherine Johnson page mentions briefly that she might be called Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson = Coleman (maiden name) Goble (first married name) Johnson (second married name for over 50 years now).

NASA never uses the middle initial G in her bios. https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography

So, calling her Katherine Johnson in the lede is the most suitable, since that has been her name for most of her very long life. And that is how NASA - and the vast makority of books and news reports -- refer to her.

From Hidden Figures (book): Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women ... https://books.google.ca/books/about/Hidden_Figures.html?id=26mpCgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y

Washington Post: ‘Hidden’ no more: Katherine Johnson, a black NASA pioneer, finds acclaim at 98 https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/hidden-no-more-katherine-johnson-a-black-nasa-pioneer-finds-acclaim-at-98/2017/01/27/d6a6feb8-dd0f-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html

NY Times: Katherine Johnson, left, and Christine Darden, two of the former NASA mathematicians in the book “Hidden Figures.” https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/books/on-being-black-female-math-whizzes-during-the-space-race.html?_r=0

Obama White House: President Barack Obama presents former NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/11/25/honoring-nasas-katherine-johnson-stem-pioneer Peter K Burian (talk) 01:51, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree with leaving the G out. However it is common in writing scientific and technical papers for an author to use a middle initial. Her NASA papers list Katherine G. Johnson as the author. StarryGrandma (talk) 02:01, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Good point StarryGrandma ; but she used Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson in her scientific papers.

And the link NASA provides on that page leads to a Bio that calls her Katherine Johnson National Visionary

http://www.visionaryproject.org/johnsonkatherine/

And the link NASA provides to a video calls her that too Katherine Johnson: Becoming a NASA Mathematician https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUsyYvrz2qQ&feature=youtu.be

But you are already in agreement that we should not use the initial G. Peter K Burian (talk) 02:11, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

This sentence assigns a possessive apostrophe to the wrong word: "Margot Lee Shetterly, the author of this work's, father was actually a research scientist at NASA who worked with many of the books main characters." I suggest deleting the modifying phrase "author of this work's" and placing the possessive apostrophe and ess with the word "Shetterly." WalterLew (talk) 13:01, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Film followed book very quickly

It's unusual to see a film made from a book, in the same year the book was published. Was there a plan, prior to the release of the book, to make a film soon afterward? A discussion of this would be a great addition to the article.75.163.201.149 (talk) 00:57, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Unclear sentence

"Katherine Johnson was allowed into all male meetings at NASA". What is meant here - that she was allowed into all meetings of males (as written) or into meetings that would have been all males (all-male meetings)? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:23, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm going to change it to what I think was meant. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 00:01, 3 June 2021 (UTC)