There are a few diaries up about the announcement that a woman will be on the new $10 bill. I commented on those but I want to make a full on diary about why you should jump on the Grace Hopper train. Or boat as the case may be.
1) Neil deGrasse Tyson would want you to.
2) Someone of great consequence.
3) A bipartisan choice.
More below the compiled code that digitally represents a squiggle.
1) Neil deGrasse Tyson would want you to.
I actually don't know what Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks of Grace Hopper. But I do know who he thinks should go on our money: https://www.youtube.com/...
With a PhD in Mathematics she certainly fits the bill (pun intended). So that's Doctor Hopper to you and she has not yet even begun to add titles to her name. We'll get to more of that later but a scientist she certainly is and after all Neil's done for you, can't you do this one thing to make him happy?
2) Someone of great consequence.
If you don't do much computer coding you may not know what a compiler does and how big a deal it is. There are things computers can inherently understand. It's a pretty short list. They know numbers, they know true/false, they can do basic math and compare things. Until Hopper came along that about summed it up. Here's a quote from her wiki:
In 1952 she had an operational compiler. "Nobody believed that," she said. "I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic."
https://en.wikipedia.org/...
Basically anything that your computer can do that a calculator can't is because of a compiler. So she invented that. You can read the whole wiki if you like. I would encourage you to. You can find out where the term, "debug," came from and learn about nanoseconds. But let's move on to the major thing I've ignored up until now.
3) A bipartisan choice.
We all know how this conversation goes. The one with your uncle/brother-in-law where you recommend Elanor Roosevelt and they come back with Nancy Reagan. You recommend Rosa Parks and they think it should be Ayn Rand. So on and so forth until this horrible family dinner ends and you don't have to see each other again for another few months.
But not with Hopper. I've done some searching and I can't find anything on her actual politics. What I can tell you is that she achieved the rank of Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. She was nominated for this by a republican senator and promoted by special appointment from the Grand Reagan himself. She even has a destroyer named after her. So not only do your in laws not know who she is, they can't say a thing against her. That would make them traitors.
I've gone on long enough. I'll finish by saying that you could compile whole binders full of women from US history who deserve to be the first one on a bill. Many of them have had a profound impact on our history but I can't think of one who is having a more profound impact on our present and our future than Rear Admiral Dr. "Amazing Grace" Murray Hopper.
