Anna Winlock
Anna Winlock | |
---|---|
Born | Boston, Massachusetts | September 15, 1857
Nationality | American |
Known for | One of the first members of female computer group known as "the Harvard Computers." |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Astronomy |
Institutions | Harvard College Observatory |
Anna Winlock (1857–1904) was an American
Early years
Winlock was born September 15, 1857, in
Harvard College Observatory
After the death of her father, it fell upon her to find financial support for her mother and four siblings, and soon she approached the Harvard College Observatory seeking a job in calculations. Specifically, she was capable of
In less than a year, she was joined at the observatory by three other women who also served as computers; they became known as
Major contributions
Through her thirty-year career at the Harvard College Observatory, Winlock contributed to the many projects the observatory faced. Her most significant work involved the continuous and arduous work of reducing and computing meridian circle observations. Five years earlier under the direction of her father, the observatory collaborated with multiple foreign observatories in a project for preparing a comprehensive star catalog. The project was divided into sections or zones by circles parallel to the celestial equator. Winlock began to work on the section called the "Cambridge Zone" shortly after being hired on by the observatory. Working over twenty years on the project, the work done by her team on the Cambridge Zone contributed significantly to the Astronomische Gesellschaft Katalog, which contains information on more than one-hundred thousand stars and is used worldwide by many observatories and their researchers.[1][3] Besides her work on the Cambridge Zone, she also contributed to many independent projects. She supervised in the creation of the Observatory Annals (a collection of tables that provide the positions of variable stars in clusters) into 38 volumes.[3]
Death
Winlock's death was unexpected. On December 17, 1904, she visited the Harvard College Observatory for what would be the last time, and she continued working through the holiday season. The last entry in her notebook of reductions was on New Years Day 1904. Three days later she died suddenly at the age of 47 in Boston, Massachusetts. A funeral service was held at St. John's Chapel in Cambridge.[1][7]
References
- ^ Bibcode:1904PA.....12..254B. Retrieved 20 March 2014.
- ^ "Anna Winlock - Biography". Maths History. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
- ^ ]
- ^ ISBN 0691091579.
- ISBN 0691091579.
- ISBN 9780674374607.
- ^ "Distinguished Woman". Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society. May 1904. Retrieved 22 March 2014 – via Google Books.