How long does it take to read Hidden Figures?
Margot Lee Shetterly
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly takes about 6 hours 54 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 6 hours 54 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2016. 376 pages, about 103,400 words.
14 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 11 hours 29 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 6 hours 54 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 19 minutes |
The page count is the median across 23 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
"Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens. Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country’s future." --source: Harper Collins Publishers
Subjects: United States, African American mathematicians, African American women, Officials and employees, Women mathematicians, Employees
