Sibyl M. Rock

Sibyl Rock, 1955

Letter from Sibyl M. Rock to Harold Wiley, 1943, Consolidated Engineering Corporation

Sibyl Martha Rock (born August 1, 1909 in Butte , Montana , † November 17, 1981 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American mathematician and computer scientist. She was a pioneer in the development of methods for data analysis when using mass spectrometers to analyze hydrocarbon mixtures.

life and work

Rock began studying mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1927 and earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1931 . During this time she was president of the national math society Phi Beta Kappa . She then worked in the petroleum industry, first at Rieber Laboratories and in 1938 at Herbert Hoover Jr.'s newly established United Geophysical Corporation. She moved to the Consolidated Engineering Corporation when it began developing the mass spectrometer as a commercial product. There she worked in the research group with the computer pioneer Clifford Berry , with whom she developed and patented an analog computer in 1946. With this, several linear equations could be solved simultaneously, which are suitable for the analysis of mass spectrometer data. Harry Huskey and the mathematician Ernst Selmer were involved in the development process as lecturers and consultants, and she worked with Ernst Selmer on coding problems for the machine. This digital computer was the forerunner of the Datatron , which was used in 1961 when a Saturn rocket was first launched in Cape Canaveral to analyze real-time guidance data. In 1947 she developed many of the methods for analyzing mixtures and wrote computer manuals, including the computer manual: Analysis of gas and liquid mixtures with the help of the mass spectrometer. Together with Martin Shepherd from the National Bureau of Standards, she analyzed the first Pasadena smog samples. This research provided valuable information about the presence and types of hydrocarbons in the Los Angeles air, as well as the oxidation of hydrocarbons with ozone and nitrogen oxides. She was also instrumental in developing mathematical techniques for analyzing the results of mass spectrometers.

literature

• Keith A. Nier, Alfred L. Yergey, P. Jane Gale: The Encyclopedia of Mass Spectrometry. Volume 9: Historical Perspectives. Amsterdam 2015, ISBN 978-0-08-100379-4 .

Web links

Commons : Sibyl M. Rock  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• American Society for Mass Spectrometry (2012). "CEC 100 Series Mass Spectrometers" (PDF)
• Burroughs Corporation records. Sibyl M. Rock papers. In: University of Minnesota Archival Collection. University of Minnesota Libraries(collection of documents written by Sibyl M. Rock for Burroughs). 
• Tom Sawyer: Burroughs 205 - Sibyl M. Rock. In: Burroughs 205 - Datatron 205 HomePage. (English, Sibyl M. Rock and its importance for the Datatron computer (also Burroughs 205)).