Grace Hopper

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Grace Hopper (January 1984)
Grace Hopper at the Univac keyboard, ca.1960

Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (born December 9, 1906 in New York City , New York as Grace Brewster Murray , † January 1, 1992 in Arlington , Virginia ) was an American computer scientist and computer pioneer. She was the last rank of Rear Admiral (lower half) in the US Navy Reserve .

Life

Grace Murray began her education at Vassar College , Poughkeepsie , New York, in 1924 , and graduated from Yale University with honors in mathematics and physics in 1930 . That same year she married Vincent Hopper, an English professor. Grace Hopper taught mathematics at Vassar College from 1931 to 1943, most recently as an associate professor after receiving her PhD from Yale University in 1934. From 1944 to 1946 she was active in the US Navy . During this time, she performed mathematical calculations at Harvard University using the Mark I computer, completed in 1944 . She also led the construction of Mark II .

From 1946 to 1949 she worked as a researcher in the computer laboratory at Harvard University. At the same time she was a member of the US Navy Reserve until 1966. From 1949 to 1952 Hopper worked at Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, then until 1971 for the Univac Division of the Sperry Rand Corporation .

In 1966 “Amazing Grace”, as she was called by her staff, retired. But at the age of 61, she was put back into active service by the US Navy in 1967 to remedy various computer problems. It was not until 1986 that she was released into retirement with the rank of rear admiral (lower half) at the age of 80. She then worked as a consultant for the Digital Equipment Corporation until 1988 .

She died in her sleep on New Years Eve 1992 and was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

Services

In the late 1940s, Hopper came up with the idea of ​​writing computer programs in an understandable language instead of just ones and zeros. She was significantly involved in the groundbreaking Mark I , Mark II and UNIVAC I projects. In 1952 she developed the first compiler ( A-0 ) and, with the programming language FLOW-MATIC and the associated compiler (1957), did essential preliminary work for the development of the programming language COBOL (nickname: "Grandma COBOL"). Their insistence on the meaning of a language that is easy to understand has given rise to compilers, interpreters and programming languages.

Logbook page of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator with the first documented bug (1947)

Often the term debugging ( German literally: dewancing; correcting program errors) is traced back to them, which is not exactly exact, because there was no error in the program (code), i.e. the software itself, when there was one in 1947 while working on the Mark II Motte had caused a relay in the computer to fail. A technician in Hopper's team found the moth, Hopper then stuck the (dead) insect in her logbook and commented on the incident with the sentence: “First actual case of bug being found.” (“The first time that a bug was actually found was. ”See figure). The term “bug” in English itself was not new at the time, but was used by engineers in the previous century.

Grace Hopper hit the headlines again in the wake of the Millennium Bug . She had limited the year to two digits in her programs, which was adopted in 1959 by the developers of the COBOL programming language when the Cobol libraries were created in order to save the RAM, which was expensive at the time. The developers and hoppers did not expect that many of their functions would be used unchanged in 1999, but they did.

Quotes

"Life was simple before World War II. After that, we had systems."

"Before World War II , life was simple, after that there were [computer] systems."

“The most dangerous phrase in the language is, 'We've always done it this way.'”

"The most dangerous sentence in a language is: 'We have always done it this way'."

"It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission."

"It is easier to ask for forgiveness than to get approval."

Honors

Grace Hopper has received over 90 awards for her achievements, including: with more than 40 honorary doctorates . In 1969 she received the Data Processing Management Association's Man of the Year Award . In 1991 she was one of the first women to receive the US National Medal of Technology . In addition, she received the Meritorious Service Medal , the Defense Distinguished Service Medal , the highest honor of the US Department of Defense, and membership in the Legion of Merit (Legion of Honor). She was the first US woman and the first woman ever to be named a Distinguished Fellow by the British Computer Society . In 1979 she received the W. Wallace McDowell Award . In 1991 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

In 1996 the destroyer USS Hopper ( Arleigh Burke class ) was launched and named in her name. It is the second warship in the United States Navy to be named after a woman from the US armed forces.

The Grace Murray Hopper Award is presented in her honor .

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing has been held in changing locations in the United States since 1994 . The conference has been held annually since 2006.

On December 9, 2013, on her 107th birthday, Google honored Grace Hopper with its own Google Doodle .

In November 2016, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom .

On November 8, 2019, an asteroid was named after her: (5773) Hopper .

In the summer of 2020, Google named a submarine cable between Europe and New York after her.

In 2021, the Teltow comprehensive school - School for Digital Learning in the Potsdam-Mittelmark district was renamed the Grace Hopper Comprehensive School.

literature

Web links

Commons : Grace Hopper  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hopper, Grace Murray - Technical University of Lübeck. In: th-luebeck.de. Lübeck University of Technology, accessed on January 2, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Christoph Dorner: Ada, who is Ada? In 1842 a young aristocrat helped build a calculating machine, the forerunner of the computer. But Ada Lovelace has been forgotten, just like many other pioneers in computer science. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 14, 2015, No. 211, p. 18.
  3. ↑ See article Educating the computer . In: FAZ , March 16, 2017, p. 14.
  4. ↑ Fred R. Shapiro: Exposing the myth behind the first bug reveals a few tales . In: BYTE . April 1994.
  5. ^ First Instance of Actual Computer Bug Being Found. In: computerhistory.org. Computer History Museum, accessed December 31, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Grace Hopper's 107th Birthday , accessed June 26, 2016.
  7. ^ The White House: President Obama Names Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. November 16, 2016, accessed November 22, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Oliver Bünte (Heise Newsticker): Cloud under water: Google builds Grace Hopper submarine cables to Europe. July 28, 2020, accessed July 28, 2020 .
  9. ↑ http://www.habenschule-teltow.de
personal data
SURNAME Hopper, Grace
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hopper, Grace Brewster Murray (full name); Murray, Grace Brewster
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer scientist and computer pioneer
BIRTH DATE December 9, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , New York
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1992
PLACE OF DEATH Arlington , Virginia