Frances Northcutt

2019-07-11T23:23:40Z

MathPerson: birthplace is "Many, not Manny, Louisiana (the latter does not exist)

{{Infobox person
| name = Frances 'Poppy' Northcutt
| image = Poppy_Northcutt_2019.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Poppy in 2019
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1943|08|10}}
| birth_place = [[Many, Louisiana]] [[United States|U.S.]]
| death_date =
| residence = Houston, Texas
| nationality =
| other_names = Poppy
| citizenship =
| alma_mater = [[University of Texas]]
| occupation = Engineer, Lawyer, Stockbroker
}}

'''Frances 'Poppy' Northcutt''' (born August 10, 1943) is a Texas attorney who began her career as a '[[human computer|computress]]' and then an engineer for the technical staff on NASA's [[Apollo Program]] during the [[space race]]. She was the first female engineer to work in NASA's [[mission control center|Mission Control]] during [[Apollo 8]].<ref name="Barteski">{{cite AV media|title=MAKERS Women in Space|date=2014|people=Barteski, Ed (Editor)|publisher=Kunhardt McGee Productions|location=Washington D.C.|medium=Motion picture}}</ref> <ref name=Orwig>{{cite web|url=http://www.businessinsider.com/poppy-northcutt-helped-apollo-astronauts-2014-12?op=1|title=This Amazing 25-Year-Old Woman Helped Bring Apollo Astronauts Back From The Moon - Business Insider|date=9 December 2014|work=Business Insider}}</ref> Lunar crater Poppy was named in her honor for her work and pioneering in the Apollo Program.<ref>{{cite book |last=Turnill |first=Reginald |date=January 18, 2007 |title=The Moonlandings: An Eyewitness Account |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |page=365 |isbn=978-0521035354 }}</ref><ref name=Williams /><ref name=":0" />

Later in her career, Northcutt became an attorney specializing in women's rights. In the early 1970s, she served on the national Board of Directors of the [[National Organization for Women]].<ref name=Williams>{{cite news|last1=Williams|first1=Cristan|title=NOW state rep talks with the TransAdvocate about TERFs, trans-inclusion and civil rights |url=http://www.transadvocate.com/now-state-rep-talks-with-the-transadvocate-about-terfs-trans-inclusion-and-civil-rights_n_13530.htm#sthash.Uu23xjjH.dpuf|accessdate=2 August 2015|publisher=The TransAdvocate|date=18 April 2014}}</ref> Now, she works and volunteers for several organizations in Houston advocating for abortion rights.

== Early Life ==
Frances "Poppy" Northcutt was born in [[Many, Louisiana]] on August 10, 1943. She grew up in [[Luling, Texas]] and then moved to [[Dayton, Texas]]. Northcutt attended high school at [[Dayton High School (Texas)|Dayton High School in Liberty County]] and then went on to study [[mathematics]] at the [[University of Texas at Austin|University of Texas]]. <ref name=Ely>{{cite web|url=http://digital.houstonlibrary.org/oral-history/frances-northcutt.php|title=Frances Northcutt - Houston Public Library Digital Archives|last=Ely|first=Jane|date=3 April 2008|work=Houston Public Library|access-date=20 November 2017}}</ref>

== Career ==
===Engineering for the Apollo Program===
After graduating in three and a half years, Northcutt was hired in 1965 by [[TRW Inc.|TRW]], an aerospace contractor with [[NASA]], as a computress for the new [[Apollo program]]. She was soon promoted to engineer stationed in the Mission Control's Mission Planning and Analysis room. She was the first female engineer to work as part of NASA's Mission Control.

Northcutt and her team designed the return-to-Earth trajectory that the [[Apollo 8]] crew took from the moon back to Earth. She made key insights that identified mistakes in the plan before they were executed.<ref name="Barteski" /> If there was any delay in swinging around the moon resulting in using up more fuel than planned it was up to Northcutt and her team to make on-the-spot calculations and changes to the plan to ensure the astronauts' safe return. Apollo 8 was the second crewed Apollo spacecraft and became the first crewed mission to ever leave Earth orbit. It successfully reached the Earth's [[moon]], orbited it and then returned to Earth safely on December 27, 1968. <ref name="Orwig">{{cite web|url=http://www.businessinsider.com/poppy-northcutt-helped-apollo-astronauts-2014-12?op=1|title=This Amazing 25-Year-Old Woman Helped Bring Apollo Astronauts Back From The Moon - Business Insider|date=9 December 2014|work=Business Insider}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite book |last=Turnill |first=Reginald |date=January 18, 2007 |title=The Moonlandings: An Eyewitness Account |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |page=365 |isbn=978-0521035354 }}</ref><ref name="Williams" /><ref name="Rissman">{{cite book |last=Rissman |first=Rebecca |publisher=Capstone Press |date=2018 |title=Houston, We've Had a Problem: The Story of the Apollo 13 Disaster}}</ref>

Northcutt continued working with TRW and NASA for several more years working as a critical component of some of NASA's most historic missions such as [[Apollo 13]]. After learning about the exploded oxygen tank on the Apollo 13 mission, Northcutt and the other engineers who developed the computer program for Apollo 13 to get home immediately came in to find a way to get the astronauts home safely.<ref name="Barteski" /> The program that she worked on was used to compute the maneuvers to come home. Northcutt and the Mission Operations Team were later awarded the [[Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team|Presidential Medal of Freedom Team Award]] for finding a way to safely return Apollo 13. [[Apollo 17]], the last mission to the moon, landed next to "Crater Poppy", a crater named in Northcutt's honor for her work as one of the early pioneers in the Apollo program.<ref name="Orwig" /><ref name="Rissman" /><ref name=":0" />

===Fighting for the Women's Rights Movement===
As one of few women working in engineering, Northcutt became increasing involved in the [[Women's liberation movement|Women's Liberation movement]]. She helped put on demonstrations, strikes, speeches, press releases and whatever she could to help the cause with the National Organization for Women. <ref name=Rissman />She spoke at [[Houston City Council|City Council]] many times and in 1974, the mayor of [[Houston, TX]] named her the first Women's Advocate for the City. In this position she passed a great deal of legislation improving the status of women. She negotiated an agreement with the [[Houston Police Department|Police Chief]] enabling women to become cops. She got the [[Houston Fire Department|Fire Department]] to agree to let women in. She led a big equal pay study going through the entire payroll. She was so dedicated to improving equality that she counted every women's versus men's bathroom in all of Houston helping bring even this number to parity.

Northcutt helped drastically increase the number of women that were on appointed boards and commissions. <ref name=":0" /> She helped pass a law that no longer allowed hospitals to charge women who came in for a rape kit. Later on, Northcutt would become President of both the Houston and entire Texas chapter for the [[National Organization for Women|National Organization of Women]]. <ref name="Orwig" /><ref name=":0" />

During this time, Northcutt was still employed by TRW, receiving a partial salary as she was on loan. When her loan expired she went back to TRW for a while. However, she believed "if you were doing your job, you should do yourself out of a job" and thus went to [[Merrill Lynch]], a stockbroker firm for a year. Northcutt then switched into the [[TRW Inc.|TRW Controls]] division and during this time attended law school at night. In 1984, Northcutt graduated [[Summa Cum Laude|summa cum laude]] from the [[University of Houston Law Center]] becoming a [[criminal defense lawyer]]. Northcutt continued to practice law with special emphasis and dedication to her fight for [[civil rights]]. <ref name="Ely" /><ref name=":0" />

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Northcutt, Frances}}
[[Category:1943 births]]
[[Category:Apollo program]]
[[Category:NASA people]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Women in technology]]
[[Category:American feminists]]
[[Category:American women lawyers]]

Bellard-Formel

2019-03-20T19:50:01Z

MathPerson: /* External links */ the link at the AMS website is more likely to be permanent

'''Bellard's formula''' is used to calculate the ''n''th digit of [[Pi|π]] in [[base 16]].

Bellard's formula was discovered by [[Fabrice Bellard]] in 1997. It is about 43% faster than the [[Bailey–Borwein–Plouffe formula]].<ref>{{cite web|title=PiHex Credits|url=http://wayback.cecm.sfu.ca/projects/pihex/credits.html|website=Centre for Experimental and Constructive Mathematics|publisher=Simon Fraser University|accessdate=30 March 2018|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170610094408/http://wayback.cecm.sfu.ca/projects/pihex/credits.html|archivedate=2017-06-10|dead-url=no|date=March 21, 1999}}</ref> It has been used in [[PiHex]], the now-completed [[distributed computing]] project.

One important application is verifying computations of all digits of pi performed by other means. Rather than having to compute all of the digits twice by two separate algorithms to ensure that a computation is correct, the final digits of a very long all-digits computation can be verified by the much faster Bellard's formula.<ref>{{cite web |title=Hexadecimal Digits are Correct! |date=31 October 2016 |url=http://pi2e.ch/blog/2016/10/31/hexadecimal-digits-are-correct/ |first=Peter |last=Trueb |access-date=2016-12-28 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20161116164638/http://pi2e.ch/blog/2016/10/31/hexadecimal-digits-are-correct/ |archivedate=2016-11-16 |dead-url=no}}</ref>

== Formula ==
: <math>
\begin{align}
\pi = \frac1{2^6} \sum_{n=0}^\infty \frac{(-1)^n}{2^{10n}} \, \left(-\frac{2^5}{4n+1} \right. & {} - \frac1{4n+3} + \frac{2^8}{10n+1} - \frac{2^6}{10n+3} \left. {} - \frac{2^2}{10n+5} - \frac{2^2}{10n+7} + \frac1{10n+9} \right)
\end{align}
</math>

==Notes==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://bellard.org/pi/ Fabrice Bellard's PI page]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060804212241/http://oldweb.cecm.sfu.ca/projects/pihex/ PiHex web site]
*[http://www.ams.org/mcom/1997-66-218/S0025-5718-97-00856-9/S0025-5718-97-00856-9.pdf David Bailey, Peter Borwein, and Simon Plouffe's BBP formula (''On the rapid computation of various polylogarithmic constants'') (PDF)]

[[Category:Distributed computing projects]]
[[Category:Pi algorithms]]
[[Category:1997 introductions]]

{{mathematics-stub}}

Wikipedia - Benutzerbeiträge [de]

Frances Northcutt

Bellard-Formel