Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Grace Hopper
- 1906 born in New York City
- best known for contributions to computer languages
- Youth & Studies
- 1928 graduated phi beta kappa from Vassar college
- Degrees in mathematics
and physics
- 1930 MA in mathematics from Yale
- 1934 Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale
- Took a one year sabbatical to study with
Richard Courant at New York University
- Teacher & Researcher
- 1931 began teaching mathematics at Vassar while pursuing a Ph.D.
- 1943 Joined the US Navy reserve
- Was assigned to the bureau of ships computation project at
Harvard university
- Programmed the Mark I and made the 561-page user manual
- Hopper and her colleagues “ran numbers” used in
developing the plutonium bomb dropped on Japan
- After the war she turned down a full professorship at Vassar
to remain at Harvard
- Became a research fellow in engineering sciences and applied physics
at Harvard
- Helped develop the Mark II and Mark III
- Was the first to refer to a computer problem as a bug (the term had been
used for mechanical problems until this time)
- 1946 left active service
- 1949 joined the Eckert-Mauchly computer corporation as a
senior mathematician
- This company had developed the first electronic
computer (the ENIAC) under army contracts
- 1952 her team developed the first computer language compiler called A-0
- Eventually made it possible to write programs for
multiple computers rather than a single machine
- Her team developed Flow-Metic, the first programming language to use English like commands
(earlier languages used mathematical symbols)
- Later Years
- advocated for the use of COBOL (a standardized computer language)
- Short for common business-oriented language
- In 1966 she was forced to retire from her navy reserve position as a
commander due to age restrictions
- Seven months later she was called back to active service to
standardize the navy computer language and remained as such
for 19 years
- 1972 retired from UNIVAC, a division of Sperry Rand
- 1985 retired from the navy as a rear admiral
- 1985 went to work as a senior consultant in public relations for 6 years
- 1991 awarded the national medal of technology by president George Bush
- She passed away in 1992