One reason I have always kept my notebooks and journals is to go back and see what has changed. It always seems to turn out that I haven't changed much on the inside. My first blogging efforts have long been removed from MySpace, but I saved the posts I thought were worth a second look. Today, this post one speaks to me. Remembering, in our modern American culture, that I am loved by my husband without spending a dime on best eye cream for wrinkles can be a challenge.
The following post was originally published on my old blog on December 13, 2006. Every word is still as true as when I first wrote them.
Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.
Anton Chekhov (1860 - 1904)
Certain things in my life have been completely natural. These are the things in life that once they are a part of your life, you forget there was a time before whatever it was came into your life.
“Amazing Grace”
History of Mathematics
April 12, 2008
It is a testament to human ingenuity that the “Grandma of computers” was born before the Model T. Grace Murray Hopper was born on December 9, 1906. She was an inquisitive young girl, particularly fond of gadgets. A natural storyteller, she recounted many tales of her youth. An alarm clock caught her eye at seven; she opened the clock to see how it worked. She was not quick enough to see the positions of the parts before they sprung out. Little Gracie was not a quitter, a constant trait in her life. She opened every clock in the house trying to catch a glance at its workings. Luckily, her mother, Mary Murray, understood her nature and fostered the learning process, although, she did limit Grace to one clock.
Grace was an athletic and agile child. Her family, father, mother, sister, and brother, spent many summers in the country at Wolfeboro. The summer “camp” had a workshop for her father, Walter. His handiness for tools was passed down to Grace. She built many things from Structiron kits, much like Erector sets. Grace could often be found on the lake or up a tree. Grace spent many happy summers at Wolfeboro. It was here she met her future husband, Vincent Hopper.
A failed Latin test kept Grace from attending Vassar at age sixteen. She spent a year at boarding school and entered at seventeen. In 1928, she graduated from Vassar with a Bachelor’s of Mathematics and Physics, Phi Beta Kappa. Her education took her to Yale, where she earned her Master’s in Mathematics in 1930. Vincent and Grace married the same year. While an apprentice teacher at Vassar, Grace obtained her Ph.D. from Yale.
A brilliant teacher and creative force, Grace Hopper influenced many young minds. However, her true gift to mankind came from a determination to serve. War swept the world, and good men were called to action. Grace was not about to be left out. She was over-age, underweight, and too valuable as a teacher. This did not stay her conviction to join the Navy. A recent separation, and later quiet divorce, granted Grace a new freedom. She acquired a medical waiver, governmental permission, and leave of absence. In 1944, Grace Murray Hopper became Midshipman then Lieutenant (junior grade) Hopper, Mathematical Officer US Navy, Bureau of Ordinance.
Lt. j.g. Hopper was ordered to Harvard University as a programmer of the Mark I, the first large-scale computer. She served under Commander Howard Aiken, the visionary behind Mark-I. He was tough man, with high standards. Arriving late the first day, Grace was treated to a harsh dressing down and ordered to provide the interpolation coefficients for the arc tangent the following Thursday. Ever perseverant, Hopper did not crumble beneath Aiken’s strong-arm tactics. She believed in him and his work, becoming unquestioningly loyal.
The Mark-I provided an entire new world for Grace’s insatiable curiosity. Grace became a programmer. The Mark-I required human transcription and imputation of codes. The numbers, aiming tables for various conditions of Naval weapons, required the team at Harvard often worked 24 hours straight. Harvard rented the Mark-I to the Navy for $800 a month; ironically this was Grace’s starting annual pay at Vassar just a few short years before. Working with the Mark-I and its team was a very rewarding part of Grace’s life and paved the way for her lifelong love affair with computers, programming, and the Navy.
After the war, Lt. Hopper was released from active duty and placed on reserve. She took a position with Eckert-Mauchley Computer Company, EMCC. (E=MC ?). She began work on what would be the BINAC, a computer with a true stored program. The BINAC was programmed in octal. To speed up her work, Grace taught herself to add, subtract, multiply, and divide in octal. This talent played havoc with her checkbook. Realizing that she could not work in octal and live in decimal, Grace decided to make the computer work for her. This revolution would later become programming, as many of us know it today, making the computer work in our language.
EMCC was bought by Remington Rand, and then merged with Sperry Corporation. Grace Hopper remained through it all. The BINAC led to the UNIVAC. It was a system that used compilers, translators for mathematical and machine code. (Grace Hopper invented the word compilers, but not computer “bug”, which is often attributed to her.) These compilers worked as subroutines, enabling programmers to call up long codes with three letter names. Facing much criticism, Grace Hopper began her next project, compiler B-0 or the “FLOW-MATIC.”
The “FLOW-MATIC” was a true revolution. It enabled the computer to recognize English commands. The UNIVAC I and II were taught twenty English-like statements. With this improvement, computers began to sell commercially. They were used in insurance, payroll, and billing offices. Grace Hopper had laid the groundwork for the modern office. Computers could understand English statements, but consistency was needed. A standard, universal language was, pardon the pun, compiled by Grace Hopper and her staff. They unveiled COBOL, in 1959. Grace, with others, created standard manuals and tools for COBOL.
In 1957, Grace Hopper achieved the rank of Commander in the US Navy. Ten years later, she was made to retire due to age. However, it seemed as though the Navy could not survive without her. Exactly seven months after putting her out to pasture the Navy reinstated Commander Hopper. This was the first recall to active duty of a woman officer. Originally a six-month assignment, Grace began standardizing the computer programming languages for all naval computers not part of weapons systems. Her reinstatement lasted nineteen years when she retired as the oldest serving Naval Officer.
By the time of her death in 1992, Grace Hopper had been promoted to Rear Admiral. She had begun work on computers in their infant stage and lived long enough to see what originally took the entire room fit into a briefcase. She did not directly change mathematics, but her work enabled others to. With computers to do the dirty work, mathematicians have made many leaps and man has landed on the moon.
Rear Admiral Hopper was loved and respected in her time. Her name and spirit live on in awards and the USS Hopper, a destroyer. The Association for Computing Machinery gives to a young, 35 or under, computer professional the Grace Murray Hopper Award who makes a single, significant technical or service contribution. The Hoppers are a group of more than 3000 worldwide members who work for Microsoft. They have established a scholarship in her honor. Arlington, Virginia, outside her former residence, is the location of Grace Murray Hopper Park. The Navy has named many buildings and avenues after Rear Admiral Hopper, but the greatest tribute is the USS Hopper. The Hopper, or “Amazing Grace,” is one of very few ships named after women.
It would be lovely to report that as the “Grandma of computers,” Grace Hopper led the way for many women. Maybe she did, but maybe not. At the time of Grace’s Ph. D. less than 16% of all U.S. Ph. Ds in Mathematics went to women. By her death that number had only reached slightly more than 20%. Ph. Ds aside, Grace provided leadership and vision. She insisted she had a job to and she did it. Well done, Grace, well done indeed.
Resources
Burton, David M. History of Mathematics, The. 6th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2007. 737.
"Rear Admiral Grace
Murray Hopper, USN." Biographies in Naval History. United
States Navy. 14 Apr. 2008 <http://www.history.navy.mil/
Riddle, Larry. "Grace
Murray Hopper." Biographies of Women Mathematicians. 18
May 2007. Agnes Scott College. 14 Apr. 2008 <http://www.agnesscott.edu/
Williams, Kathleen B. Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute P, 2004.
“Grace Murray Hopper Award.” Association for Computing Machinery. 14 Apr. 2008














