Grace Hopper

Grace Murray Hopper

Rear Admiral Grace M. Hopper, 1984
Nickname(s) "Amazing Grace"
Born (1906-12-09)December 9, 1906
New York City, New York, U.S.
Died January 1, 1992(1992-01-01) (aged 85)
Arlington, Virginia, U.S.
Place of burial Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance  United States of America
Service/branch  United States Navy
Years of service 1943–1966, 1967–1971, 1972–1986
Rank Rear admiral (lower half)
Awards Defense Distinguished Service Medal
Legion of Merit
Meritorious Service Medal
American Campaign Medal
World War II Victory Medal
National Defense Service Medal
Armed Forces Reserve Medal with two Hourglass Devices
Naval Reserve Medal
Presidential Medal of Freedom (posthumous)

Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (née Murray; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral.[1] One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of computer programming, inventing one of the first compiler related tools. She popularized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today.

Hopper had tried to enlist in the Navy during World War II. She had to join the Navy Reserves because she was too old to enlist at the age of 34. Hopper started her computing career working in the Harvard Mark I team led by Howard H. Aiken. In 1949, she joined the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation, joining the team that developed the UNIVAC I in 1944. It was at Eckert–Mauchly that she began developing the compiler. She believed that computer code could be written in English using a programming language based on English words. The compiler would convert that code into machine code understood by computers. By 1952, Hopper finished her compiler, which was written for the A-0 System programming language.[2][3][4][5]

In 1954, Eckert–Mauchly chose Hopper to lead their department for automatic programming, and she led the release of some of the first compiled languages like FLOW-MATIC. In 1959, she participated in the CODASYL consortium, which consulted Hopper to guide them in creating a machine-independent programming language. This led to the COBOL language, inspired by her idea of a language being based on English. In 1966, she retired from the Naval Reserve, but in 1967, the Navy recalled her into active duty. She retired from the Navy in 1986 and found work as a consultant for the Digital Equipment Corporation, sharing her computing experiences.

Owing to her accomplishments and her naval rank, she was sometimes referred to as "Amazing Grace".[6][7] The U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Hopper was named for her, as was the Cray XE6 "Hopper" supercomputer at NERSC.[8] During her lifetime, Hopper was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities across the world. In 1991, she received the National Medal of Technology. On November 22, 2016, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.[9]

Early life and education

Hopper was born in New York City. She was the eldest of three children. Her parents, Walter Fletcher Murray and Mary Campbell Van Horne, were of Scottish and Dutch descent, and attended West End Collegiate Church.[10] Her great-grandfather, Alexander Wilson Russell, an admiral in the US Navy, fought in the Battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War.

Grace was very curious as a child; this was a lifelong trait. At the age of seven, she decided to determine how an alarm clock worked, and dismantled seven alarm clocks before her mother realized what she was doing (she was then limited to one clock).[11] For her preparatory school education, she attended the Hartridge School in Plainfield, New Jersey. Hopper was initially rejected for early admission to Vassar College at age 16 (her test scores in Latin were too low), but she was admitted the following year. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar in 1928 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics and earned her master's degree at Yale University in 1930.

In 1934, she earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale[12] under the direction of Øystein Ore.[13][14] Her dissertation, New Types of Irreducibility Criteria, was published that same year.[15] Hopper began teaching mathematics at Vassar in 1931, and was promoted to associate professor in 1941.[16]

She was married to New York University professor Vincent Foster Hopper (1906–76) from 1930 until their divorce in 1945.[13][17] She did not marry again, but chose to retain his surname.

Career

World War II

Hopper's signatures on a duty officer signup sheet for the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard, which built and operated the Mark I

Hopper had tried to enlist in the Navy early in the war. She was at age 34, too old to enlist, and her weight to height ratio was too low. She was also denied on the basis that her job as a mathematician and mathematics professor at Vassar College was valuable to the war effort.[18] During World War II in 1943, Hopper obtained a leave of absence from Vassar and was sworn into the United States Navy Reserve, one of many women to volunteer to serve in the WAVES. She had to get an exemption to enlist; she was 15 pounds (6.8 kg) below the Navy minimum weight of 120 pounds (54 kg). She reported in December and trained at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Hopper graduated first in her class in 1944, and was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University as a lieutenant, junior grade. She served on the Mark I computer programming staff headed by Howard H. Aiken. Hopper and Aiken co-authored three papers on the Mark I, also known as the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator. Hopper's request to transfer to the regular Navy at the end of the war was declined due to her advanced age of 38. She continued to serve in the Navy Reserve. Hopper remained at the Harvard Computation Lab until 1949, turning down a full professorship at Vassar in favor of working as a research fellow under a Navy contract at Harvard.[19]

Grace Murray Hopper, in her office in Washington DC, 1978, ©Lynn Gilbert

UNIVAC

In 1949, Hopper became an employee of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation as a senior mathematician and joined the team developing the UNIVAC I.[16] Hopper also served as UNIVAC director of Automatic Programming Development for Remington Rand. The UNIVAC was the first known large scale electronic computer to be on the market in 1950, and was more competitive at processing information than the Mark I.[20]

When she recommended that a new programming language be developed using entirely English words, she "was told very quickly that [she] couldn't do this because computers didn't understand English." This idea was not accepted for 3 years, and she published her first paper on the subject, compilers, in 1952. In the early 1950s, the company was taken over by the Remington Rand corporation, and it was while she was working for them that her original compiler work was done. The program was known as the A compiler and its first version was A-0.[21]:11

In 1952 she had an operational link-loader, which at the time was referred to as a compiler. She later said that "Nobody believed that," and that she "had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic."[22] She goes on to say that her compiler "translated mathematical notation into machine code. Manipulating symbols was fine for mathematicians but it was no good for data processors who were not symbol manipulators. Very few people are really symbol manipulators. If they are they become professional mathematicians, not data processors. It’s much easier for most people to write an English statement than it is to use symbols. So I decided data processors ought to be able to write their programs in English, and the computers would translate them into machine code. That was the beginning of COBOL, a computer language for data processors. I could say “Subtract income tax from pay” instead of trying to write that in octal code or using all kinds of symbols. COBOL is the major language used today in data processing.”[23]“

In 1954 Hopper was named the company's first director of automatic programming, and her department released some of the first compiler-based programming languages, including MATH-MATIC and FLOW-MATIC.[16]

COBOL

Hopper at the UNIVAC I console, c. 1960

In the spring of 1959, computer experts from industry and government were brought together in a two-day conference known as the Conference on Data Systems Languages (CODASYL). Hopper served as a technical consultant to the committee, and many of her former employees served on the short-term committee that defined the new language COBOL (an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language). The new language extended Hopper's FLOW-MATIC language with some ideas from the IBM equivalent, COMTRAN. Hopper's belief that programs should be written in a language that was close to English (rather than in machine code or in languages close to machine code, such as assembly languages) was captured in the new business language, and COBOL went on to be the most ubiquitous business language to date.[24] Among the members of the committee that worked on COBOL was Mount Holyoke College alumna Jean E. Sammet. [25]

From 1967 to 1977, Hopper served as the director of the Navy Programming Languages Group in the Navy's Office of Information Systems Planning and was promoted to the rank of captain in 1973.[19] She developed validation software for COBOL and its compiler as part of a COBOL standardization program for the entire Navy.[19]

Standards

In the 1970s, Hopper advocated for the Defense Department to replace large, centralized systems with networks of small, distributed computers. Any user on any computer node could access common databases located on the network.[21]:119 She developed the implementation of standards for testing computer systems and components, most significantly for early programming languages such as FORTRAN and COBOL. The Navy tests for conformance to these standards led to significant convergence among the programming language dialects of the major computer vendors. In the 1980s, these tests (and their official administration) were assumed by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), known today as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Retirement

Hopper being promoted to the rank of commodore in 1983

In accordance with Navy attrition regulations, Hopper retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of commander at age 60 at the end of 1966.[26] She was recalled to active duty in August 1967 for a six-month period that turned into an indefinite assignment. She again retired in 1971, but was again asked to return to active duty in 1972. She was promoted to captain in 1973 by Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr.[27]

After Republican Representative Philip Crane saw her on a March 1983 segment of 60 Minutes, he championed H.J.Res. 341, a joint resolution originating in the House of Representatives, which led to her promotion to commodore by special Presidential appointment.[27][28][29][30] She remained on active duty for several years beyond mandatory retirement by special approval of Congress.[31] Effective November 8, 1985, the rank of commodore was renamed rear admiral (lower half) and Hopper became one of the Navy's few female admirals.

Admiral Hopper retired (involuntarily) from the Navy on August 14, 1986 after a career over 42 years. At a celebration held in Boston on the USS Constitution to commemorate her retirement, Hopper was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the highest non-combat decoration awarded by the Department of Defense.

At the time of her retirement, she was the oldest active-duty commissioned officer in the United States Navy (79 years, eight months and five days), and aboard the oldest commissioned ship in the United States Navy (188 years, nine months and 23 days).[32] (Admirals William D. Leahy, Chester W. Nimitz, Hyman G. Rickover and Charles Stewart were the only other officers in the Navy's history to serve on active duty at a higher age. Leahy and Nimitz served on active duty for life due to their promotions to the rank of fleet admiral.)

Post retirement

Following her retirement from the Navy she was hired as a senior consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), a position she retained until her death in 1992, aged 85.

Her primary activity in this capacity was as a goodwill ambassador, lecturing widely on the early days of computers, her career, and on efforts that computer vendors could take to make life easier for their users. She visited most of Digital's engineering facilities, where she generally received a standing ovation at the conclusion of her remarks.

She often recounted that during her service she was frequently asked by admirals and generals why satellite communication would take so long. So during many of her lectures, she illustrated a nanosecond using salvaged obsolete Bell System 25 pair telephone cable, cut it to 11.8 inch (30 cm) lengths, the distance that light travels in one nanosecond, and handed out the individual wires to her listeners. Although no longer a serving officer, she always wore her Navy full dress uniform to these lectures, which is allowed by US Navy uniform regulations.

The most important thing I've accomplished, other than building the compiler, is training young people. They come to me, you know, and say, 'Do you think we can do this?' I say, "Try it." And I back 'em up. They need that. I keep track of them as they get older and I stir 'em up at intervals so they don't forget to take chances.[33]

Death

Hopper died in her sleep of natural causes on New Year's Day 1992 at her home in Arlington, Virginia; she was 85 years of age. She was interred with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.[34]

Dates of rank

Awards and honors

Military awards
Bronze star
Top Row
Defense Distinguished Service Medal
(1986)
Legion of Merit
(1967)
Meritorious Service Medal
(1980)
2nd Row
Presidential Medal of Freedom
(2016, Posthumous)
American Campaign Medal
(1944)
World War II Victory Medal
(1945)
Bottom Row
National Defense Service Medal
with bronze service star
(1953, 1966)
Armed Forces Reserve Medal
with two bronze hourglasses
(1963, 1973, 1993)
Naval Reserve Medal
(1953)

Other awards

Legacy

Anecdotes

Photo of "first computer bug"

Throughout much of her later career, Hopper was much in demand as a speaker at various computer-related events. She was well known for her lively and irreverent speaking style, as well as a rich treasury of early war stories. She also received the nickname "Grandma COBOL".

Jay Elliot described Grace Hopper as appearing to be "'all Navy', but when you reach inside, you find a 'Pirate' dying to be released".[64]

Obituary notices

See also

References

  1. ↑ Cantrell, Mark (March 2014). "Amazing Grace: Rear Adm. Grace Hopper, USN, was a pioneer in computer science". Military Officer. 12 (3). Military Officers Association of America. pp. 52–55, 106. Retrieved March 1, 2014.
  2. ↑ Donald D. Spencer (1985). Computers and Information Processing. C.E. Merrill Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-675-20290-9.
  3. ↑ Phillip A. Laplante (2001). Dictionary of computer science, engineering, and technology. CRC Press. ISBN 978-0-8493-2691-2.
  4. ↑ Bryan H. Bunch, Alexander Hellemans (1993). The Timetables of Technology: A Chronology of the Most Important People and Events in the History of Technology. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-76918-5.
  5. ↑ Bernhelm Booss-Bavnbek, Jens Høyrup (2003). Mathematics and War. Birkhäuser Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7643-1634-1.
  6. ↑ "Cyber Heroes of the past: "Amazing Grace" Hopper". Retrieved December 12, 2012.
  7. ↑ "Grace Murray Hopper". Retrieved December 12, 2012.
  8. ↑ "Hopper". www.nersc.gov. Retrieved 2016-03-19.
  9. ↑ "White House honors two of tech's female pioneers". cbsnews.com. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  10. ↑ Williams, Kathleen Broome (2004). Grace Hopper: admiral of the cyber sea. Library of naval biography. Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1557509522.
  11. ↑ Dickason, Elizabeth (April 1992). "Looking Back: Grace Murray Hopper's Younger Years". Chips.
  12. ↑ "Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992)". nwhm.org. National Women's History Museum. Retrieved September 1, 2014.
  13. 1 2 Green, Judy and Jeanne LaDuke (2009). Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: The Pre-1940 PhD's. Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematical Society. ISBN 978-0821843765.
  14. ↑ Though some books, including Kurt Beyer's Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age, reported that Hopper was the first woman to earn a Yale PhD in mathematics, the first of ten women prior to 1934 was Charlotte Cynthia Barnum (1860–1934). Murray, Margaret A. M. (May–June 2010). "The first lady of math?". Yale Alumni Magazine. 73 (5). pp. 5–6. ISSN 0044-0051.
  15. ↑ G. M. Hopper and O. Ore, "New types of irreducibility criteria," Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 40 (1934) 216 "New types of irreducibility criteria".
  16. 1 2 3 Ogilvie, Marilyn; Joy Harvey (2000). The biographical dictionary of women in science: pioneering lives from ancient times to the mid-20th century. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92040-X.
  17. ↑ "Prof. Vincent Hopper of N.Y.U., Literature Teacher, Dead at 69". The New York Times. January 21, 1976.
  18. ↑ "Grace Hopper". www.thocp.net. Retrieved 2016-12-12.
  19. 1 2 3 Williams, Kathleen Broome (2001). Improbable Warriors: Women Scientists and the U.S. Navy in World War II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-961-1.
  20. ↑ Ann., Camp, Carole (2004). American women inventors. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers. ISBN 0766015386. OCLC 48398924.
  21. 1 2 McGee, Russell C. (2004). My Adventure with Dwarfs: A Personal History in Mainframe Computers (PDF). University of Minnesota: Charles Babbage Institute. Retrieved May 7, 2014.
  22. ↑ "The Wit and Wisdom of Grace Hopper".
  23. ↑ "Lynn Gilbert, Women of Wisdom of Grace Hopper".
  24. ↑ Beyer, Kurt W. (2009). Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01310-9.
  25. ↑ "Jean Sammet, Co-Designer of a Pioneering Computer Language, Dies at 89"
  26. ↑ "Attrition/Retirement". Retrieved April 29, 2013.
  27. 1 2 3 4 "Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, USN". Biographies in Naval History. United States Navy Naval Historical Center. Retrieved May 28, 2007.
  28. ↑ "Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, USNR, (1906–1992) Informal Images taken during the 1980s". Biographies in Naval History. United States Navy Naval Historical Center. Retrieved July 2, 2013. Commodore Grace M. Hopper, USNR. receives congratulations from President Ronald Reagan, following her promotion from the rank of Captain to Commodore in ceremonies at the White House, 15 December 1983
  29. ↑ "Historic Images of Ronald Reagan". U.S. Defense Department. Archived from the original on October 19, 2013. Retrieved March 7, 2016. President Ronald Reagan greets Navy Capt. Grace Hopper as she arrives at the White House for her promotion to Commodore, Dec. 15, 1983. Hopper was a computer technology pioneer
  30. 1 2 "Late Night with David Letterman". Late Night with David Letterman. Season 5. Episode 771. New York City. October 2, 1986. NBC. "[to President Ronald Reagan on her promotion] Sir ... I'm older than you are ... YouTube title: Grace Hopper on Letterman
  31. ↑ Hacker, Barton C. (2006). American Military Technology: The Life Story of a Technology. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 131. ISBN 9780313333088.
  32. ↑ "Computer Whiz Retires from Navy". Detroit Free Press. United Press International. August 15, 1986. p. 4A.
  33. ↑ Gilbert, Lynn (December 10, 2012). Particular Passions: Grace Murray Hopper. Women of Wisdom Series (1st ed.). New York City: Lynn Gilbert Inc. ISBN 978-1-61979-403-0.
  34. ↑ RADM Grace Brewster Murray Hopper at Find a Grave
  35. ↑ "First Ladies".
  36. ↑ "DISA Recipients - Association of Information Technology Professionals". Retrieved June 28, 2016.
  37. ↑ "Honorary Degrees | University Honors | Marquette University". Marquette.edu. Retrieved August 19, 2014.
  38. ↑ Lee, J.A.N. "Computer Pioneers — Grace Brewster Murray Hopper". IEEE Computer Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Retrieved April 29, 2017.
  39. ↑ "Western New England: From College to University A Retrospective: 1919-2011" (PDF). Western New England University. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  40. ↑ "Grace Hopper - Computer History Museum Fellow Award Recipient". Computerhistory.org. Retrieved March 30, 2015.
  41. ↑ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter H" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  42. ↑ "The 2002 Government Technology Leadership Awards". Government Executive. April 1, 2002. Retrieved May 20, 2014.
  43. ↑ "Hopper Home Page". nersc.gov.
  44. ↑ Robert K. Ackerman (February 2009), "Naval Intelligence Ramps up Activities", Signals, AFCEA
  45. ↑ "Grace Hopper's 107th Birthday". Google. Retrieved December 9, 2013.
  46. ↑ Matthew Sparkes (December 9, 2013). "Grace Hopper honoured with Google doodle". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved December 9, 2013.
  47. ↑ "These Are The 21 People Receiving The Nation's Highest Civilian Honor". npr.org. November 16, 2016. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  48. ↑ "Brewster Connections: Summer 2007" (PDF).
  49. ↑ "US Naval Academy Dedicates New Supercomputer".
  50. ↑ Yale News, July 18, 2008
  51. ↑ "Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing". Gracehopper.org. Retrieved December 9, 2013.
  52. ↑ "Grace Hopper Academy". gracehopper.com. Retrieved 2015-10-15.
  53. ↑ "Exclusive: Grace Hopper Academy, An All-Women Coding School, To Open In New York". International Business Times. Retrieved 2015-10-15.
  54. ↑ Brading, Tom (March 13, 2012). "Women's History Month: Beyond the bridge: Story of 'Amazing Grace' Hopper". Retrieved February 12, 2013.
  55. ↑ "Inventor of the Week: Archive". Web.mit.edu. Retrieved December 9, 2013.
  56. ↑ "Hopper biography". History.mcs.st-and.ac.uk. Retrieved December 9, 2013.
  57. ↑ "Biography – Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, USN". United States Navy. Retrieved December 9, 2013.
  58. ↑ "New Subdivision Names". First Robotics Corporation. 2015-02-09. Retrieved 2016-03-16.
  59. ↑ Born with Curiosity: The Grace Hopper Story on IMDb
  60. ↑ Edison to Puskas, November 13, 1878, Edison papers, Edison National Laboratory, U.S. National Park Service, West Orange, N.J., cited in Thomas P. Hughes, American Genesis: A History of the American Genius for Invention, Penguin Books, 1989, ISBN 0-14-009741-4, on page 75.
  61. ↑ Alexander Magoun and Paul Israel (August 23, 2013). "Did You Know? Edison Coined the Term "Bug"". IEEE: The Institute. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved August 27, 2013.
  62. ↑ "Log Book With Computer Bug". National Museum of American History. Retrieved May 7, 2014.
  63. ↑ Nano seconds lecture by Grace Hopper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8
  64. ↑ Elliott, Jay; Simon, William L. (2011). The Steve Jobs way: iLeadership for a new generation. Philadelphia: Vanguard. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-59315-639-8.

Further reading

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