The woman who laid the foundation for the GPS global positioning system

Born on October 27, 1930, into a poor farming family, the black child Gladys West could not have imagined her future path: to become a mathematician and contribute to research that laid the foundation for the creation of the GPS positioning system.

In 2018, West was inducted into the United States Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame - Photo courtesy.

Gladys West was born in Sutherland, Virginia, during the early stages of the Great Depression. Her parents worked hard to make ends meet in their rural town, where Black residents had few job opportunities outside of farming and tobacco processing.

But while chopping wood and feeding chickens, West dreamed of "more"—"more books, more classes, more teachers, and more time to daydream"—as she wrote in her memoir "Starting with a Dream".

From outstanding students

In high school, West excelled in math and science . That's when her mother saw a path: the top two graduating students would receive college scholarships. West won first place and became the first in her family, and the second in her community, to attend college.

After graduating from Virginia State University with a bachelor's degree in mathematics, West became a teacher at a rural high school exclusively for Black students. A few years later, she earned a master's degree in mathematics.

Shortly afterward, West received a letter from the Naval Proving Ground, now the Naval Support Facility in Dahlgren, Virginia. She applied for the position of mathematics specialist.

In 1956, when West took the job, Dahlgren was the Navy's primary computing center. West's first assignment involved programming and coding algorithms to calculate weapon system range tables, a top priority amid the tense Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

She also studied flight paths for the fledgling U.S. satellite program, another project spurred on by the Cold War.

I counted the fence posts along the road and across the fields as we walked to school, just to have something different to do. I became good at it, never realizing that I was honing some skills and abilities that I would one day use to help calculate the hypothetical shape of the Earth.

Gladys West

This led to laying the foundation for GPS.

In the 1960s, against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement, West's projects shifted from weapons systems to the fundamental nature of Earth's orbit, gravity, and shape. Much of the work was top secret: the Department of Defense wanted an accurate, stable satellite navigation system, and the Navy was developing crucial components of a foundational framework for the Global Positioning System, or GPS.

West wrote: "One of my tasks was to calculate the geoid, the hypothetical shape of the Earth, that coincides with mean sea level and its imaginary extension below or above land areas." She also faced the added challenge of working primarily with satellite data collected over water, which required incorporating tides and other forces into the calculations.

In addition to the geoid model, her work improved the Earth's reference ellipsoid model and satellite orbital models. This work laid the foundation for GPS. She wrote: "Without these three key elements, using satellites to determine a location on Earth would be impossible. The better these elements are defined and continuously refined, the more accurate the positioning results will be."

West spent the next few decades improving on these results, while also completing a master's degree in public administration. She led data analysis projects for two NASA satellite missions to further develop the models, and published several scientific papers related to GPS. However, West was often sidelined in career advancement opportunities given to her white male colleagues.

By 1964, the Navy had deployed its first satellite navigation system, the precursor to GPS, called Transit. This system used five satellites and could produce accurate positioning within a range of about 150 meters, although it often took up to an hour to obtain results.

In the 1970s, the military began planning for a more advanced system that could generate location data almost instantaneously. But a fundamental problem limited the ability to generate the kind of precise location data we have today with GPS, which typically has an accuracy of about 1 meter. This problem lies at the very heart of Einstein's theory of relativity.

By the 1990s, with her children grown and her husband retired, West was ready for "more." While still working full-time at Dahlgren, she completed coursework and exams to earn a doctorate in public administration and public affairs.

After 42 years of service, West retired at Dahlgren in 1998. She wrote in an email: "The highlight was being able to understand the software system well enough to identify its problems."

In 2000, having recovered from two strokes, West completed her dissertation and received her doctorate. In her memoir, she called it "the greatest achievement of my life."

Now, at age 95, West is still thinking about "more." She wants to see more engaging math teaching methods, more young people pursuing STEM classes, and more girls and women confidently pursuing science. She says, "Keep learning. Keep pursuing your dreams."

Gladys West and a colleague at Dahlgren, where West's research contributed to the creation of GPS in 1985 - Photo: U.S. Navy

West's contributions were largely overlooked until the 2010s, when her career received recognition. In 2018, West was inducted into the United States Air Force Space and Rocket Pioneers Hall of Fame.

Powerful inspiration

Gladys West's example is incredibly inspiring. People who change their lives often begin with a dream, and it is that dream that dramatically transforms the dreamer's life from rags to riches. America has a unique "American Dream," a "self-made" dream that many pursue, most notably Abraham Lincoln, to escape their predetermined fate.

Dreams sometimes reside in the subconscious, or we can create them and implant them into our subconscious. And that dream is the psychological motivation that propels an individual's upward path. Dreams can develop from childhood and gradually grow. They also break through obstacles, allowing the seed of the dream to sprout.

In America, dreams are often supported by a good education system and research universities to give wings to them. There must be a strong belief in learning, knowledge, or science and technology—what Nobel laureate Joel Mokyr called industrial enlightenment—as things that will transform individuals and nations, not divine intervention.

Numerous examples of life-changing transformations have occurred around the world, and on a larger scale, across nations. A nation without dreams is like an individual without them; it will drift aimlessly, resigned to its fate.

Dr. Nguyen Xuan Xanh

Do Thi Thu Tra (translated and summarized from an article on the American Physical Society website)

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nguoi-phu-nu-dat-nen-mong-cho-he-thong-dinh-vi-toan-cau-gps-20251027101155957.htm