(L-R) Ne'Kiya Jackson and Calcea Johnson, 60 Minutes screenshot
Two high school students from St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans have achieved what was once thought to be impossible: solving a 2,000-year-old math puzzle using trigonometry.
St. Mary’s Academy is a private Catholic school founded just after the Civil War. The school has produced a lineage of barrier-breaking graduates, including prominent figures like renowned chef Leah Chase and Michelle Woodfork, the first woman to lead the New Orleans Police Department.
It all began when Michelle Blouin Williams, a math teacher at St. Mary’s, devised a challenging bonus question for a school-wide math contest with a $500 prize. The question tasked students with creating a new proof for the Pythagorean Theorem, a fundamental principle of geometry, utilizing trigonometry. While such a feat seemed daunting, Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson, seniors at St. Mary’s, rose to the challenge.
Calcea and Ne’Kiya embarked on a journey that would lead to groundbreaking discoveries. Despite the theorem’s long-standing history, with roots tracing back to ancient Babylon and Egypt, and its subsequent revelation by Pythagoras nearly 2,000 years ago, Calcea and Ne’Kiya were determined to solve the problem, ABC News reported.
It took the two months. When they submitted their innovative proofs to their teachers, they were encouraged to present their work at a mathematics conference. The high schoolers have identified five additional proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. The Pythagorean Theorem’s equation: A² + B² = C², explains that by knowing the length of two sides of a right triangle, it’s possible to figure out the length of the third side.
When Calcea and Ne’Kiya set out to devise a fresh proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, they were unaware that for millennia, a proof utilizing trigonometry was deemed unattainable. In 2009, mathematician Jason Zimba presented one, and now Calcea and Ne’Kiya are contributing as well, CBS News reported.
To record the progress made by Calcea and Ne’Kiya, educators at St. Mary’s forwarded their proofs to an American Mathematical Society conference held in Atlanta in March 2023.
“Well, our teacher approached us and was like, ‘Hey, you might be able to actually present this,'” Ne’Kiya told 60 Minutes. “I was like, ‘Are you joking?’ But she wasn’t. So we went. I got up there. We presented and it went well, and it blew up.”
As African American women, Calcea and Ne’Kiya’s success challenges stereotypes, but their journey hasn’t been without obstacles, unwarranted criticism and racist remarks.
St. Mary’s Academy president and interim principal Pamela Rogers said that with recognition came racist calls and comments.
“[People said] ‘they could not have done it. African Americans don’t have the brains to do it.’ Of course, we sheltered our girls from that,” Rogers told 60 Minutes. “But we absolutely did not expect it to come in the volume that it came.”
Kiya and Calcea have since graduated. Ne’Kiya received a full scholarship in the pharmacy department at Xavier University in New Orleans. Calcea, the class valedictorian, is studying environmental engineering at Louisiana State University. Neither is pursuing a career in math.
(L-R) Ne’Kiya Jackson and Calcea Johnson, 60 Minutes screenshot
