La magia invisibile del GPS. Gladys West e la forma della Terra

We travel over significant fractions of the Earth’s surface, far from considering air travel a feat. We can reach any city, mountainous areas, rural areas, lakes, archaeological sites, but few of us know that it was US mathematician Gladys West who defined an extremely detailed geodetic model of the Earth. Gladys Mae West worked at the Naval Proving Ground (now the Naval Surface Ware Center) in Virginia until her retirement. She was the second black woman and one of only four black employees at that research center. Her most significant contribution was putting together models of the Earth’s shape using satellite data that allowed her to define an accurate pattern that would become the basis of the Global Positioning System (GPS).