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History of computer science

People have been using mechanical devices like abacus to aid calculation for

thousands of years. The ancient Greeks developed some very sophisticated analog computers.

John Napier (1550-1617), the Scottish inventor of logarithms, invented Napier's rods

(sometimes called "Napier's bones") to simplify the task of multiplication. Work on calculating

machines continued. Some special-purpose calculating machines were built like, Carissan (1880-

1925), a lieutenant in the French infantry, designed and had built a marvelous mechanical

device for factoring integers and testing them for primality. In 1936, Alan Turing (1912-1954)

constructed a formal model of a computer -- the Turing machine the calculations required for

ballistics during World War II spurred the development of the general-purpose electronic

digital computer. At Harvard, Howard H. Aiken (1900-1973) built the Mark I

electromechanical computer in 1944, with the assistance ofIBM. Grace Murray Hopper (1906-

1992) invented the notion of a compiler, in 1951. Earlier, in 1947, Hopper found the first

computer "bug" John Backus and others developed the first FORTRAN compiler in April 1957.

LISP, a list-processing language for artificial intelligence programming, was invented by John

McCarthy in 1958.

In the 1960's, computer science came into its own as a discipline. In fact, the term was

coined by George Forsythe, a numerical analyst. The first computer science department was

formed at Purdue University in 1962. The first person to receive a Ph. D. from a computer

science department was Richard Wexelblat, at the University of Pennsylvania, in December

1965. At the end of the decade, Arpanet, a precursor to today's Internet, began to be

constructed. The theory of databases saw major advances with the work of Edgar F. Codd on

relational databases. This decade also saw the rise of the personal computers. Parallel

computers continue to be developed.

http://www.nmsi.ac.uk/on-line/treasure/objects/1905-111.htmlhttp://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/mathhist/turing.htmlhttp://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Aiken.htmlhttp://www.eingang.org/Lecture/hmark1.htmlhttp://www.eingang.org/Lecture/hmark1.htmlhttp://www.ibm.com/http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Hopper.GIFhttp://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/mathhist/hopper.htmlhttp://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Bug.GIFhttp://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Backus.GIFhttp://www8.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/html/lisp-enter.htmlhttp://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/index.htmlhttp://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/index.htmlhttp://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/Courses/134/gat.htmlhttp://www.purdue.edu/http://info.sigchi.acm.org/awards/turing_citations/codd.htmlhttp://info.sigchi.acm.org/awards/turing_citations/codd.htmlhttp://www.purdue.edu/http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/Courses/134/gat.htmlhttp://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/index.htmlhttp://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/index.htmlhttp://www8.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/html/lisp-enter.htmlhttp://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Backus.GIFhttp://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Bug.GIFhttp://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/mathhist/hopper.htmlhttp://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Hopper.GIFhttp://www.ibm.com/http://www.eingang.org/Lecture/hmark1.htmlhttp://www.eingang.org/Lecture/hmark1.htmlhttp://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Aiken.htmlhttp://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/mathhist/turing.htmlhttp://www.nmsi.ac.uk/on-line/treasure/objects/1905-111.html

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Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage (1791-1871 was born 26

Dec 1791, the son of a London banker. In

1811, he co-founded the Analytical Society to

promote continental mathematics and toreform the mathematics of Newton taught at

the University at that time. He worked on

the calculus of functions in his twenties.

After being elected a Fellow of the Royal

Society in 1816, Babbage played a role in the

development of the stronomical Society in

1820. In 1821 he invented the Difference

Engine to compile mathematical tables. The

Difference Engine was completed in 1832.

Then he began work on a machine that could

do any type of calculation, and this machinewas the Analytical Engine completed about

1856.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage in 1860

Born26 December 1791

London, England

Died18 October 1871 (aged 79)

Marylebone, London, England

Nationality English

FieldsMathematics,analytical

philosophy, computer science

Known for Mathematics, computing

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John von Neumann ;( December 28, 1903 February 8,

1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician and

polymath who made major contributions to a vast number

of fields. Including set theory, functional analysis, quantum

mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics,

economics, linear programming, game theory, computerscience, numerical analysis, hydrodynamics, and statistics,

as well as many other mathematical fields. He is generally

regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians in modern

history. The mathematician Jean Dieudonn called von

Neumann "the last of the great mathematicians", while

Peter Lax described him as possessing the most "fearsome

technical prowess" and "scintillating intellect" of the

century, and Hans Bethe stated "I have sometimes

wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does not

indicate a species superior to that of man". Even in

Budapest, in the time that produced geniuses like Theodorevon Krmn (b. 1881), George de Hevesy (b. 1885), Le

Szilard (b. 1898), Eugene Wigner (b. 1902), Edward Teller

(b. 1908), and Paul Erds (b. 1913), his brilliance stood out.

Von Neumann was a pioneer of the application of

operator theory to quantum mechanics, in the development

of functional analysis, a principal member of the Manhattan

Project and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton

(as one of the few originally appointed), and a key figure in

the development of game theory and the concepts of

cellular automata, the universal constructor, and the digitalcomputer. Von Neumann's mathematical analysis of the

structure of self-replication preceded the discovery of the

structure of DNA. In a short list of facts about his life he

submitted to the National Academy of Sciences, he stated

"The part of my work I consider most essential is that on

quantum mechanics, which developed in Gttingen in

1926, and subsequently in Berlin in 19271929. Also, my

work on various forms of operator theory, Berlin 1930 and

Princeton 19351939; on the ergodic theorem, Princeton,

19311932." Along with Teller and Stanisaw Ulam, von

Neumann worked out key steps in the nuclear physicsinvolved in thermonuclear reactions and the hydrogbomb

John von Neumann

John von Neumann in the 1940s

BornDecember 28, 1903

Budapest,Austria-Hungary

DiedFebruary 8, 1957 (aged 53)

Washington, D.C., United States

FieldsMathematicsandcomputer

science

Known for

Computer virus

Commutation theorem

Continuous geometry

Game theory

Lattice theory

Lifting theory

Merge sort

Minimax theorem

von Neumann architecture

Notable

awardsEnrico Fermi Award(1956)

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