Euler's Method scene in Hidden Figures

[valleyoftheheart]

Sheldon looks super salty for at least a third of this movie 😂

[NotLegato]

"that's ancient"- haha, i don't think any scientist would ever say that. the pythagorean theorem is pretty old too...

[coolcat]

"Euler's Method? bUt ThATs aNcIeNT"

[explorer]

'Huh, that's it'
'Type it up'
Damn, not even a thank you?

[deltafunction]

At least the director made sure the actors pronounced Euler's name correctly.

[Just.A.T-Rex]

People just don’t realize how truly epic Euhler was. The sheer quantity of works that are still being published today and into tomorrow beyond is unbelievable.

[tadious]

As a math person, the idea of anyone at that level of math or science dismissing something because Euler worked on it is ridiculous. Euler revamped the world of math in many ways and his formulas are the foundation of a ton of different things in lots of areas. That'd be like them saying well lets discount Newton's laws of motion because that's ancient. It's not wrong and it was discovered by a genius. Loved the movie as a whole though! Just as a math person that line was a bit odd lol.

[tortillajoe]

I remember back when I was in AP calculus. In the last month (after we had taken the AP test) we had nothing to do so we goofed around and watched movies. We watched hidden figures and I’ll never forget how everyone had the same simultaneous groan when she said “eulers method” because of how absolutely done we were with it. Good times.

[gwenward]

As a math major, I feel like I have to explain why I suspect nobody considered Euler's method at first. Euler's method is a form of numerical computing by approximating a complex formula by a combination of several simpler formulas. Basically, you draw several very tiny lines between the points and use that to approximately represent the function (it's actually more involved than that, but that would take longer to explain) The idea is that the smaller the distance between the points, the more exact your final answer will be. However, when you decrease the distance between the points, you increase the number of calculations you need to do. Nowadays, numerical methods like this are usually done with a computer, which will generate 1000 calculations before you finish getting your coffee, but back in the day this movie is set computers were brand new. All these calculations would have to be done by hand, and although that's what they hired "computers" for, the regular NASA scientists would have probably seen it a cumbersome, and may have forgotten about it years before.

[oscaralvarez]

I love when she do math is so pretty I feel like I wanted to work for nasa

[Erin-Thor]

When I watched this I was amazed at the realization that all the math was done by hand, not one advanced computer was used. They successfully calculated and projected everything that brought humans from the earth to the moon and back. That’s pretty damn awesome. 😊

[Vika]

"Math is always dependable."
"For YOU it is."
😂😂

[angl]

Love the stunned reaction by Jim Parsons. You can tell from his expression he's realised that Katherine is a level above him.

[robertmorris]

My Dad taught himself Calculus so he could be a machinist. Since it wasn't a subject in his dinky high school, and he got drafted into the Army, he must have done it in his spare time in the Army. After that he got a job as a boring mill operator for Vought. He worked on probably every aviation and space program there was for 30 years. He was laid off for a couple years, so he worked at Lockheed in the Skunkworks.

I remember once when I was a kid, we had a class project to report what our parents did. I asked Mom, "Directory assistance supervisor for Southwestern Bell.

I asked Dad, "I make potato chips." Many years later he said he told me that because it was classified at the time. Probably the Regulus missile.

And he LOVED messing with everybody in a myriad of creative ways. THE original funny bone.

[Eleni_E]

We’re literally learning Euler’s Method this week in DiffEq. It’s a class most STEM majors take immediately following the calculus sequence. Euler is the freaking rock star of the math department (he’s got multiple fanboys, it’s great). Seeing the stuff I’m groaning over in my 8am presented so dramatically made me laugh hard enough I think I may have cracked a rib.

[pcbacklash_]

I see a lot of comments here stating that Euhler's method is such a basic part of mathematics training that it should have been obvious to everyone in that room.

Now, I never got beyond basic high school geometry (history was always my thing), so I don't know if that's true.  But I DO know problem-solving, and if there's anything I've learned it's that people can be so laser-focused on certain methods and paradigms that they can overlook the most 'obvious' thing, even if it's right in front of their face.

And I know enough about the early days of NASA to recognize that they were dealing with technology so cutting-edge that, often, they didn't even know what questions to ask, let alone find the answers.  So their natural inclination would be to use the most modern methodologies available.  In that frame of mind, I can understand how they could easily overlook some ancient method, however 'obvious' it may seem to an outside observer.

Just my two cents...

[MoonIceDream]

my math teacher: "we're going to watch a movie about math!"
everyone:
me: *just excited because the movie is also about space*

[vjreimedia]

As a kid I was really bad at math, teachers always paid attention to the kids who got it faster. My mom hired a lady to teach me, it was like learning German explained by a Mandarin speaker. Until for some reason everything made sense. There was something I was not getting it until I got it. In my school they rate the grades from 01 to 20 where you have to get a 10 to pass as a minimum, 9 is failed. And they do 3 tests. On the first one I got 03, on the second one 09. I was about to lose the year but on the last test I got 19. The next semester I got 17, 20 and 19, the best grade. Math is such a joy.

[jacobhill]

Just took my test in Differential Equations over Euler’s method. Surprisingly the easiest part of the test..

[kootybear]

This is such a great movie. So many great actors and actresses. Love it.