Film “Hidden Figures” (on TV last night)

Would you agree that this film contains about as much accuracy as “The Dish”?

ie. Some parts are spot on accurate, other parts are pure theatre.

I was interested in the movie mostly from two points of view, from the point of view of hiring and treatment of personnel during the space race, and from, the point of view of the mathematics involved. I didn’t watch it to listen to a diatribe about how terrible racism is, but to Mrs m that was by far the most interesting part.

The maths for Euler’s method was spot on accurate. The maths on the blackboard for the Pentagon briefing was pure theatre. The time required to manually check the coordinates for John Glenn was about how long it would really take. The higher accuracy of the manual calculations is pure theatre. The switch from “new mathematics” to “old mathematics” was actually necessary. But Euler’s method was needed for the descent through the atmosphere, not from the elliptical orbit to reentry. The calculation from elliptical orbit to reentry point has to be done last, but that part of the flight path was not a parabolic orbit.

Similarly, the relationship between the individual characters and the appearance of racism was a mixture of accuracy and theatre.

Comments?

Sounds like it was very much the standard Hollywood treatment of any real-life story with a scientific background.

There will always be changes and distortions in movies like that, partly to compress the story into a movie-length format, partly to ensurethat the audience doesn’t nod off. Some things will be exaggerated for dramatic effect, some tigs wil be downplayed.

If they stuck to ‘the truth’ where they could, then they did better than a lot of other efforts.

mollwollfumble said:

Film “Hidden Figures” (on TV last night)

Would you agree that this film contains about as much accuracy as “The Dish”?

ie. Some parts are spot on accurate, other parts are pure theatre.

I was interested in the movie mostly from two points of view, from the point of view of hiring and treatment of personnel during the space race, and from, the point of view of the mathematics involved. I didn’t watch it to listen to a diatribe about how terrible racism is, but to Mrs m that was by far the most interesting part.

The maths for Euler’s method was spot on accurate. The maths on the blackboard for the Pentagon briefing was pure theatre. The time required to manually check the coordinates for John Glenn was about how long it would really take. The higher accuracy of the manual calculations is pure theatre. The switch from “new mathematics” to “old mathematics” was actually necessary. But Euler’s method was needed for the descent through the atmosphere, not from the elliptical orbit to reentry. The calculation from elliptical orbit to reentry point has to be done last, but that part of the flight path was not a parabolic orbit.

Similarly, the relationship between the individual characters and the appearance of racism was a mixture of accuracy and theatre.

Comments?

the transformed anglo prowess gave me an erection.

not the first movie i’ve ever seen in which egalitarian ladies have helped with an anglo orbit, reentry and landing

excellent movie the dish by the way, one of in my collection

transition said:

not the first movie i’ve ever seen in which egalitarian ladies have helped with an anglo orbit, reentry and landing

excellent movie the dish by the way, one of in my collection

The Dish is a good movie. It has its own ‘accommodations’ of the story to suit format and the ability to get the message across, but it does convey the significance of the events quite well.