The Brilliant Calculator

By Jan Lower, Susan Reagan (Illustrator)

A woman defies odds to revolutionize electrical engineering with a paper calculator.

4.1/5 Goodreads · 151 ratings

40 pages

$18.99Save 5%

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Bookroo's summary

Meet Edith Clarke, a math prodigy with a dream to engineer a brighter America. Despite barriers, she invents a paper calculator, transforming the field of electricity. Can her innovation light up the nation and break gender norms? Discover how one woman's ingenuity electrified a country and paved the way for future engineers.

From the publisher

A Mathical Honor Book Hidden Figures meets Rosie Revere, Engineer in this STEM/STEAM picture book about Edith Clarke, the innovator who solved an electrical mystery and built the first graphing calculator–from paper! Long before calculators were invented, little Edith Clarke devoured numbers, conquered calculations, cracked puzzles, and breezed through brainteasers. Edith wanted to be an engineer–to use the numbers she saw all around her to help build America. When she grew up, no one would hire a woman engineer. But that didn’t stop Edith from following her passion and putting her lightning-quick mind to the problem of electricity. But the calculations took so long! Always curious, Edith couldn’t help thinking of better ways to do things. She constructed a “calculator” from paper that was ten times faster than doing all that math by hand! Her invention won her a job, making her the first woman electrical engineer in America. And because Edith shared her knowledge with others, her calculator helped electrify America, bringing telephones and light across the nation.

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