Margaret Hamilton (scientist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Margaret Hamilton (1995)

Margaret Hamilton b. Heafield (born August 17, 1936 in Paoli , Indiana ) is an American computer scientist and mathematician . She was director of the software development department of the Instrumentation Laboratory (now Draper Laboratory) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where the on-board flight software for the Apollo space program was developed.

Life

Hamilton graduated from Hancock High School in 1954 and received her B.Sc. of mathematics at Earlham College . There she met her future husband, the lawyer James Cox Hamilton. Their daughter, Lauren Hamilton , an actress and camerawoman, was born in 1959. She moved to Massachusetts with plans to graduate from Brandeis University , but instead accepted a job as a software engineer at MIT.

From 1976 to 1984, Hamilton was the managing director of Higher Order Software (HOS) , a company she co-founded. In 1986 she founded in Cambridge , Massachusetts , Hamilton Technologies, Inc. , and was CEO of the company. The company's work was based on the Universal Systems Language , which is based on its paradigm for system and software design "Development Before The Fact".

NASA

Hamilton in the time as a software developer at NASA

At NASA , Hamilton was responsible for developing the on-board flight software necessary to navigate to the moon and back, and to land on the moon. The software was then used in other space programs, including the Skylab space station . She gained practical experience in computer science and software development even before there was any corresponding training.

She developed innovative approaches in the areas of system architecture, software development, business and process modeling, avoidance of errors in development paradigms, formal system and software modeling languages, system-oriented approaches to system modeling and development, automated runtime environments, methods for reliability and reusability of software, problem analysis, checking the correctness of language properties, techniques for open architectures of stable systems, complete automation of the life cycle, quality assurance, seamless integration, distributed process systems, error detection and elimination, human-machine interfaces, operating systems, end-of-life to end-test techniques and the management of software over its life cycle.

On this basis, she developed concepts for asynchronous software, priority-controlled task processing and “man-in-the-loop” decision-making, which is the basis of modern, extremely reliable software architecture.

Apollo 11

Hamilton next to printouts of the Apollo flight software

The developments of Hamilton and her team at MIT prevented the Apollo 11 moon landing from being aborted in 1969. Three minutes before the lander reached the lunar surface, several computer alerts were triggered. The computer was overloaded with incoming data, because that is not required for landing Rendezvous - radar system updated a counter, which unnecessarily consumed processor time. Due to the stable architecture (fixed-priority pre-emptive scheduling), the computer was still able to continue working because the Apollo flight software was developed in such a way that important tasks, such as those critical for landing, could interrupt less important tasks. Originally, the problem of a faulty checklist and the unplanned activation of the radar was attributed to the crew.

“Due to a mistake in the checklist, the switch for the rendezvous radar was moved to the wrong position. This sent incorrect signals to the computer. As a result, the computer had to carry out its normal functions for the landing and at the same time received additional useless data, the processing of which required up to 15% of its capacity. The computer (or rather the software in it) was smart enough to realize that it was asking for more work than it could do. He therefore set off an alarm that was supposed to tell the astronaut: 'I am overloaded with tasks that I shouldn't be doing now, and I will only focus on the important tasks,' that is, those that are needed for the landing. […] In fact, the computer was programmed to do more than just recognize the error: the software contained a whole set of rescue programs. In this case, he responded by abandoning the less important tasks and letting the more important ones come back to life. [...] If the computer hadn't recognized the problem and responded accordingly, then I doubt that Apollo 11 would have been the successful moon landing that it was. "

- Margaret Hamilton : letter to the computer magazine Datamation , March 1, 1971

A re-investigation in 2005 concluded that a flaw in the design of the rendezvous radar hardware was providing the computer with incorrect information even though it was in stand-by mode.

Software development

Hamilton popularized the term software engineering . In this area, she developed concepts for asynchronous software, priority-controlled execution , end-to-end tests and man-in-the-loop decision-making ability , which later became the basis of particularly reliable software architecture through priority displays.

The environment in which she worked was characterized by the fact that at that time there were no training courses in computer science or software development. We learned through practical experience.

Awards

Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom , 2016

In 1986, the Association for Women in Computing (AWC) presented Hamilton with the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award .

In 2003 she received the NASA Exceptional Space Act Award for her scientific and technical contribution to the success of the Apollo program . The award was endowed with $ 37,200, the highest sum NASA has ever paid out to a single awardee.

In November 2016, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom . In 2017 she became a Fellow of the Computer History Museum .

In 2018 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia .

Publications

Margaret Hamilton has published 130 articles and reports on the 60 projects and the six largest programs in which she has been involved. A selection:

  • M. Hamilton, S. Zeldin (1976) “Higher order software — A methodology for defining software” IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering , vol. SE-2, no.1, Mar. 1976
  • M. Hamilton (1994), "Inside Development Before the Fact," cover story, Editorial Supplement, 8ES-24ES. Electronic Design , Apr. 1994
  • M. Hamilton, Hackler, WR (2004), Deeply Integrated Guidance Navigation Unit (DI-GNU) Common Software Architecture Principles (revised dec-29-04), DAAAE30-02-D-1020 and DAAB07-98-D-H502 / 0180, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ, 2003-2004
  • MH Hamilton and WR Hackler (2007), " Universal Systems Language for Preventative Systems Engineering ," Proc. 5th Ann. Conf. Systems Eng. Res. (CSER), Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ. Mar. 14-16, 2007, paper # 36

literature

Web links

Commons : Margaret Hamilton  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Emma Stickgold: James Cox Hamilton, at 77; lawyer was quiet warrior for First Amendment. Boston Globe, August 31, 2014, accessed May 26, 2015 .
  2. ↑ 1936 is also given as the year of birth in Tiffany Wayne, American women of science since 1900 , ABC-Clio, 2011
  3. ↑ a b c d e NASA Office of Logic Design "About Margaret Hamilton" (accessed October 19, 2016)
  4. ↑ [1]
  5. ^ A b Margaret Hamilton . Cambridge Women's Heritage Project (CWHP).
  6. ^ M. Hamilton and WR Hackler, "Universal Systems Language: Lessons Learned from Apollo," IEEE Computer, Dec. 2008
  7. ↑ a b Michael Braukus: NASA Honors Apollo Engineer . In: NASA News , September 3, 2003.
  8. ↑ Margaret H. Hamilton: Computer Got Loaded . In: Cahners Publishing Company (Ed.): Datamation . March 1, 1971. ISSN  0011-6963 .
  9. ^ Don Eyles: Tales from the Lunar Module Guidance Computer . In: 27th annual Guidance and Control Conference . American Astronautical Society . February 6, 2004. Retrieved June 13, 2013.
  10. ^ AJS Rayl: NASA Engineers and Scientists: Transforming Dreams Into Reality . In: NASA.gov . 2007 (English).
  11. ^ ACM Digital Library. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  12. ^ Bertrand Meyer: The origin of "software engineering". In: Bertrand Meyer's technology + blog. April 4, 2013, accessed January 24, 2016 .
  13. ↑ a b NASA Honors Apollo Engineer . NASA press release. September 3, 2003 (English).
  14. ↑ NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said: “The concepts that you and your team developed became the cornerstone of modern software development. I am honored to recognize Ms. Hamilton for her exceptional service to NASA. "
  15. ^ President Obama Names Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The White House, November 16, 2016, accessed November 22, 2016 .
  16. ^ Investiture of scientist Margaret Hamilton as an honorary doctor of the UPC . Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya , October 18, 2018 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Hamilton, Margaret
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heafield, Margaret (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer scientist and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH 17th August 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Paoli , Indiana , USA