Born October 27th, 1930
Died January 17th, 2026
It was only late in life that the mathematician Gladys West, who has died aged 95, was recognised for her role in the development of today’s global positioning system, or GPS. She came to be thought of as another “hidden figure” – a reference to the 2016 book and subsequent film about three black women who worked at Nasa during the space race.
While West’s story may have been less dramatic – it took decades of painstaking work at the US Naval Weapons Laboratory for her to come up with the geodesic systems that would allow the precise measurements and mapping needed for the technology – her work nevertheless transformed modern life.
Yet the woman who helped to develop global mapping, which provides pinpoint locations everywhere on the planet, preferred to use…