The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Katie Bouman helped the world see a black hole. Fans want ‘a rightful seat in history’ for her.

By
April 11, 2019 at 1:50 p.m. EDT
Katie Bouman was a MIT postdoctoral student when she led a team that designed one of the algorithms that led to capturing the first images of a black hole. (Video: Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)

First came the breathtaking image, the first one to ever show a black hole, in a galaxy about 55 million light-years from Earth.

Then came the giddy realization that the remarkable, years-in-the-making moment would not have been possible without the work of a 29-year-old female scientist, who has now claimed a special spot in history.

Get the full experience.Choose your plan

Katherine Bouman, a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, created an algorithm that assembled the one-of-a-kind picture. And after the image was unveiled to the world on Wednesday, Bouman began earning accolades from fellow scientists, historians and politicians for her significant achievement.

“Given the extent of the use of ‘historic’ today, we are unashamedly and legitimately jumping on the #BlackHolePicture bandwagon. Congratulations Dr. Bouman!” the Royal Historical Society wrote on social media.

Algorithms gave us the black hole picture. She’s the 29-year-old scientist who helped create them.

Bouman started working on an algorithm as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying electrical engineering and computer science.

According to The Washington Post’s Ben Guarino:

She was one of about three dozen computer scientists who used algorithms to process data gathered by the Event Horizon Telescope project, a worldwide collaboration of astronomers, engineers and mathematicians.
Telescopes around the world collected high-frequency radio waves from the vicinity of Messier 87, a supermassive black hole 54 million light-years away. But atmospheric disturbance and the spareness of the measurements meant “an infinite number of possible images” could explain the data, Bouman said. Well-designed algorithms had to crunch through the chaos.

When the first-ever image was unveiled Wednesday, it prompted overwhelming excitement online, not only for science but also for the scientist behind it.

“I am inspired by Katie Bouman,” Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of U.N. Women, wrote on Twitter.

And Sue Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said, “add me to the #KatieBouman fan club.”

Such sentiment was shared across social media.

Even ...

Read more:

See a black hole for the first time in a historic image from the Event Horizon Telescope

Loading...