#177 - Gladys Mae West and the Oblate Spheroid

Published: Dec. 16, 2020, 12:34 a.m.

Triangulating a location on a perfectly round globe is relatively easy, but how do you do it on a globe that's squished in the middle -- an "oblate spheroid"? This week we take a look at Gladys Mae West, a pioneering African-American mathematician whose work in the mid-20th century is still used for global positioning systems today.