When Computers Were Human
Page 48
52. Applied Mathematics Panel to Chairs of Mathematics Departments, December 15, 1943, Correspondence 1940–45, IOWA MATH.
53. Reports of Columbia SRG, AMG-C, and BRG, Minutes of Executive Committee, May 4, 1944, AMP; MacLane, “Appendix: Roster of People.”
54. Isaacson, “The Origin of Mathematics of Computation and Some Personal Recollections.”
55. Budget of the Applied Mathematics Panel for 1944, Diary of Warren Weaver, January 10, 1944, AMP.
56. See AMP Correspondence for September–October 1943, November 1943, especially Equitable Life Insurance to Warren Weaver, October 27, 1943, and Diary of Mina Rees for November 6, 1944, AMP.
57. Minutes of Executive Committee, June 28, 1943, AMP.
58. Warren Weaver to Harold V. Gaskill, Iowa State College, November 4, 1943, Diary of Mina Rees, AMP.
59. Stewart, “End of the ABC.”
60. Rosser, “Mathematics and Mathematicians in World War II.”
61. Abraham Hillman, interview with the author, February 1996.
62. Weekly Reports of Mathematical Tables Project, 1943–44, AMP.
63. Officer in Charge of New York Project to Hydrographer, October 9, 1944, MTP ONR.
64. Warren Weaver to Lyman Briggs, March 31, 1944, AMP.
65. Craven and Gate, The Army Air Forces in World War II, p. 169.
66. Reid, Neyman from Life, p. 190.
67. Owens, “Mathematicians at War: Warren Weaver and the Applied Mathematics Panel, 1942–1945” (1989).
68. Diary of Warren Weaver, November 16, 1943, AMP.
69. See “Excerpt from Diary of J. Neyman, Washington, DC and Eglin Field, Florida,” December 3–19, 1942, Jerzy Neyman Correspondence, AMP.
70. Reid, Neyman from Life, p. 183.
71. Jerzy Neyman to Warren Weaver, August 6, 1942, Jerzy Neyman Files, AMP.
72. Ibid.
73. Linus Pauling to Warren Weaver, February 5, 1942, Jerzy Neyman Files, AMP.
74. Warren Weaver to Jerzy Neyman, July 2, 1942, Jerzy Neyman Files, AMP.
75. Executive Committee Minutes, November 29, 1943, AMP.
76. Jerzy Neyman to Warren Weaver, December 17, 1943, AMP. This letter was written from California after the Mathematical Tables Project had finished work in New York, but Neyman had yet to learn this.
77. Diary of Warren Weaver, December 17, 1943, AMP.
78. Craven and Gate, The Army Air Forces in World War II, p. 169.
79. Commander Bramble quoted in Executive Committee Minutes, December 20, 1943, AMP.
80. Andrews, E. C., “Telephone Switching and the Early Bell Laboratories Computers” (1982); Williams, A History of Computing Technology, pp. 225–27; Cesareo, “The Relay Interpolator.”
81. Executive Committee Minutes, December 20, 1943, AMP.
82. There are many discussions of the ENIAC. The canonical accounts are Stern, From ENIAC to UNIVAC, and Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann. Two versions that attempt to address the machine in the context of its human computers are Fritz, “The Women of ENIAC,” and Bergin, Fifty Years of Army Computing.
83. Arthur Burks, interview conducted by William Aspray, June 20, 1987, OH 136, CBI.
84. Eckstein, “J. Presper Eckert.”
85. Cohen, I. B., Howard Aiken (1999), pp. 115, 119; Campbell, “Mark II, an Improved Mark I.”
86. Executive Committee Minutes, March 6, 1944, AMP.
87. Ibid.
88. Mina Rees to Oswald Veblen, June 9, 1945, Applied Mathematics Panel Correspondence, AMP.
89. See, for example, Executive Committee Minutes, March 1, 1943, AMP.
90. Quoted in Stachel, “Lanczos’s Early Contributions to Relativity and His Relationship with Einstein.”
91. Blanch and Rhodes, “Table-Making at the National Bureau of Standards.”
92. Executive Committee Minutes, November 6, 1944, AMP.
93. Undated memo from Ardis Monk, head of the computing office, UC PHYSICS.
94. Metropolis and Nelson, “Early Computing at Los Alamos”; see also Gleick, Genius, pp. 175–84.
95. Everett Yowell, Interview, SMITHSONIAN.
96. Register of the United States for 1901, Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1901.
97. Everett Yowell, interview with the author, December 1998.
98. Everett Yowell, Interview, SMITHSONIAN.
99. Metropolis and Nelson, “Early Computing at Los Alamos.”
100. Feynman, “Los Alamos from Below.”
101. Metropolis and Nelson, “Early Computing at Los Alamos”; Gleick, Genius, pp. 175–84.
102. Cohen, Portrait of a Computer Pioneer, p. 164.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE VICTOR’S SHARE
1. Stibitz, “Lecture” (1946), p. 15; Comrie, “Careers for Girls” (1944).
2. Diary of J. B. Williams, December 2, 1944, AMP. The term is used in a reference to John Tukey of Princeton University. Tukey, credited with inventing the word “bit” to refer to a binary digit, was known to be inventive with language and is probably the source of the term “kilogirl.” Stibitz referred to “girl years”; Stibitz, “Lecture” (1946).
3. Comrie, “Careers for Girls” (1944).
4. Ida Rhodes to Uta Merzbach, November 4, 1969, NMAH; Abraham Hillman, interview with the author, February, 1996; Golemba, Women in Aeronautical Research, p. 41.
5. Minutes of Executive Committee, September 25, 1944, AMP; see Reingold, “Vannevar Bush’s New Deal for Research” (1987).
6. Stewart, I., Organizing Scientific Research for War, p. 299.
7. Zachary, Endless Frontier, p. 218.
8. Warren Weaver to Lyman Briggs, October 2, 1944, General Correspondence 7/1/44 to 21/31/44, AMP.
9. Minutes of Executive Committee, September 25, 1944, AMP; see Stewart, I., Organizing Scientific Research for War, pp. 299–309.
10. Warren Weaver to J. G. Brainerd of the University of Pennsylvania, December 19, 1944, General Correspondence 7/1/44 to 21/31/44, AMP.
11. Minutes of Executive Committee, September 11, 1944, AMP.
12. Ibid.
13. Officer in Charge of New York Project to Hydrographer, October 9, 1944, MTP ONR.
14. Minutes of Executive Committee, August 28, 1944, AMP.
15. Notes of Thornton Fry, October 18, 19, 1944, AMP.
16. Minutes of Executive Committee, November 6, 1944, AMP.
17. Minutes of Executive Committee, March 15, 1945, AMP.
18. Ibid.
19. Minutes of Executive Committee, April 2, 1945, AMP.
20. Ibid.
21. Richard Courant, “Some Thoughts on the Research Board for National Security” (ca. March 1945), AMP.
22. Minutes of Executive Committee, April 2, 1945, AMP.
23. McCullough, Truman, p. 349.
24. Minutes of Executive Committee, April 16, 1945, AMP.
25. Minutes of Executive Committee, June 2, 1945, AMP.
26. Minutes of Executive Committee, April 2, 1945, AMP.
27. Lyman Briggs to General Huie, April 13, 1942, MTP WPA.
28. Todd, “Oberwolfach—1945” (1983).
29. Beauclair, “Alwin Walther, IPM, and the Development of Calkulator/Computer Technology in Germany, 1930–1945,” p. 342.
30. Todd, “Oberwolfach—1945” (1983).
31. Ibid.
32. Süss, “The Mathematical Research Institute Oberwolfach through Critical Times.”
33. Beauclair, “Alwin Walther, IPM, and the Development of Calkulator/Computer Technology in Germany, 1930–1945,” p. 347.
34. Todd, “Applied Mathematical Research in Germany with Particular Reference to Naval Applications” (1945).
35. Beauclair, “Alwin Walther, IPM, and the Development of Calkulator/Computer Technology in Germany, 1930–1945,” p. 340.
36. John Todd, interview with the author, January 2002.
37. Todd, “Oberwolfach—1945” (1983).
38. H. M. MacNeille to Dorothy Weeks, Jun
e 3, 1945, Lyman Briggs File, AMP.
39. Arnold Lowan to Mina Rees, June 26, 1945, AMP.
40. Thornton Fry to Mina Rees, July 9, 1945, AMP.
41. Lowan, Arnold, “Report on Math Tables Project work done during the War,” December 4, 1945, AMP.
42. Abraham Hillman, interview with the author.
43. Mina Rees to Arnold Lowan, June 21, 1945, Correspondence with Mathematical Tables Project, AMP.
44. Minutes of Executive Committee, September 24, 1945, AMP.
45. Ibid.
46. Arnold Lowan to R. W. Smith, December 18, 1945, BRIGGS.
47. R. C. Archibald to Churchill Eisenhart, June 23, 1945, General Correspondence, 1940–46, NRC-MTAC; Archibald, “Conference on Advanced Computation Techniques” (1946).
48. Shannon, “Mathematical Theory of the Differential Analyzer.”
49. Archibald, “Conference on Advanced Computation Techniques” (1946).
50. S. Charp to Adele Goldstine, May 14, 1945, Course on Mathematical Ballistics, PENNSYLVANIA.
51. Grier, “ENIAC, the Verb ‘to Program’ and the Emergence of Digital Computers.”
52. Herman Goldstine, interview with the author, July 2002.
53. There is an extensive literature on the stored program concept and the role of the ENIAC; see Stern, From ENIAC to UNIVAC; Williams, A History of Computing Technology, pp. 266–83; Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing, pp. 20–27.
54. Campbell-Kelly and Williams, The Moore School Lectures, pp. xv–xvi.
55. Those who might have represented human computers were present as machine designers. Among these were George Stibitz and Herman Goldstine (ibid.).
56. Travis, “The History of Computing Devices.”
57. Campbell-Kelly and Williams, The Moore School Lectures, p. 18.
58. See Owens, “Mathematicians at War,” and Owens, “The Counterproductive Management of Science in the Second World War.”
59. Minutes of Executive Committee, April 25, 1946, AMP.
60. Mina Rees to Oswald Veblen, June 9, 1945, Future of Science Folder, AMP.
61. See National Bureau of Standards, “Activities in Applied Mathematics, 1946–1947,” pp. 12–13; compare National Bureau of Standards, Projects and Publications of the National Applied Mathematics Laboratories, 1947–1949, Particle Interaction (June 30, 1948), Reactor Turbine Design (December 31, 1947, p. 16), Radiation (March 31, 1949, p. 63).
62. Irvin Stewart to Warren Weaver, April 18, 1945, Correspondence File, MTP AMP.
63. Ida Rhodes to Lyman Briggs, November 21, 1945, BRIGGS.
64. John Curtiss to Arnold Lowan, April 12, 1946, Directors Correspondence, NBS.
65. Todd, “John Hamilton Curtiss, 1909–1977” (1980).
66. National Bureau of Standards, The National Applied Mathematics Laboratories—A Prospectus, p. 7; see also Aspray and Gunderloy, “Early Computing and Numerical Analysis at the National Bureau of Standards.”
67. The National Applied Mathematics Laboratories, p. 7.
68. Quoted in Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, August 15, 1947, MORSE.
69. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, August 15, 1947, MORSE.
70. Everett Yowell, interview with the author, December 1998.
71. Ibid.
72. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, August 15, 1947, MORSE.
73. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, July 26, 1947; Philip Morse to Arnold Lowan, August 12, 1947, MORSE.
74. John von Neumann to John Curtiss, May 29, 1948, MORSE.
75. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, December 15, 1947, December 28, 1947, January 31, 1948, MORSE.
76. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, March 18, 1948, MORSE.
77. Arnold Lowan to Edward Condon, May 5, 1948, MORSE.
78. Arnold Lowan to Edward Condon, May 5, 1948; Samuel Finkelstein to Edward Condon, July 19, 1948, MORSE.
79. Lyman Briggs to Arnold Lowan, July 17, 1939, BRIGGS.
80. Samuel Finkelstein to Philip Morse, June 22, 1948, MORSE.
81. Samuel Finkelstein to R. C. Archibald, April 9, 1948, and attached memos (n.d.), NRC-MTAC.
82. Ibid.
83. Miller and Gillette, Washington Seen, p. 52.
84. R. C. Archibald to R. C. Gibbs, April 27, 1948, NRC-MTAC.
85. John von Neumann to John Curtiss, May 13, 1948, MORSE.
86. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, May 20, 1948, MORSE.
87. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, July 1, 1948, MORSE.
88. Samuel Finkelstein to Philip Morse, June 22, 1948, MORSE.
89. Dantzig, “Reminiscences about the Origins of Linear Programming” (1982); Dantzig, “Origins of the Simplex Method” (1990).
90. Dorfman, “The Discovery of Linear Programming.”
91. Dantzig quoted ibid.
92. Stigler, G., “The Cost of Subsistence” (1945).
93. George Dantzig to John von Neuman, April 28, 1948, Correspondence “D,” NEUMANN.
94. Stigler, G., “The Cost of Subsistence” (1945).
95. George Dantzig to John von Neuman, April 28, 1948, NEUMANN. The timings for the ENIAC do not conform to the values given in Goldstine and Goldstine, “The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC).” That paper gives values which are about twice as large. Using these values, the problem would have taken slightly more than 18 hours.
96. National Bureau of Standards, Projects and Publications of the National Applied Mathematics Laboratories, April–June 1948, Project 48S2-15, p. 20.
97. Gurer, “Women’s Contributions to Early Computing” (1996); Fritz, “The Women of ENIAC” (1996).
98. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, January 5, 1949, MORSE.
99. Philip Morse to Arnold Lowan, January 24, 1949, MORSE.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I ALONE AM LEFT TO TELL THEE
1. Aspray and Williams, “Arming American Scientists.”
2. See Report No. 7 of the Association for Computing Machinery, May 30, 1949, BERKELEY.
3. Farewell card to Gertrude Blanch (n.d.), STERN.
4. Federal Bureau of Investigation file on Gertrude Blanch, BLANCH FBI.
5. Pursell, “A Preface to Governmental Support of Research.”
6. Curtiss, Interview, p. 20, SMITHSONIAN.
7. Curtiss, “The National Applied Mathematics Laboratory” (1947).
8. Curtiss, Interview, SMITHSONIAN.
9. John Todd, interview with the author, January 2002.
10. Olga Taussky-Todd to Frances Cave-Browne-Cave, August 29, 1947, CBC.
11. John Todd, interview with the author, January 2002.
12. Hestenes and Todd, NBS-INA—The Institute for Numerical Analysis.
13. Curtiss, Problems for the Numerical Analysis of the Future (1951), p. xi.
14. Hestenes and Todd, NBS-INA—The Institute for Numerical Analysis, appendix F.
15. The request came from Samuel Herrick of UCLA and was published in Tables for Rocket and Comet Orbits (AMS 20), Washington, DC, National Bureau of Standards, 1953.
16. Huskey, “SWAC”; see also Rutland, Why Computers Are Computers, pp. 24–25.
17. Randell, The Origins of Digital Computers, p. 193.
18. Albert Cahn to George F. Taylor, March 16, 1949, UCLA ADMIN.
19. National Bureau of Standards, Projects and Publications of the National Applied Mathematics Laboratories, September 1948.
20. Everett Yowell, interview with the author, December 30, 1998.
21. Sheldon and Tatum, “The IBM Card-Programmed Electronic Calculator”; Bashe et al., IBM’s Early Computers, pp. 68–72.
22. Hestenes and Todd, NBS-INA—The Institute for Numerical Analysis, p. 19.
23. Ibid., pp. v, 7, 8, 11, 29.
24. Edward Condon to Robert Sproul, May 7, 1951, UCLA ADMIN.
25. Huskey, “SWAC.”
26. Hestenes and Todd, NBS-INA—The Institute for Numerical Analysis, p. 5.
27. Halberstam, The Fifties, p. 4.
28. Rhodes, Dark Sun (1995), p. 365.
> 29. Quoted ibid., p. 363.
30. Wang, “Science, Security and the Cold War.”
31. Quoted ibid.
32. Memo from R. L. Randell, Personnel Officer, December 5, 1949, NBS DIRECTOR.
33. Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986), p. 397.
34. July 17 Petition, Harrison-Bundy File, folder 76, MANHATTAN.
35. Ian Bartky, communication with the author concerning his father, Walter Bartky.
36. Memo to Raymond Allen, University Provost, January 1952, UCLA ADMIN.
37. SAC Memo Regarding Gertrude Blanch Security Matter—C, September 20, 1955, p. 1, BLANCH FBI.
38. Miriam Gaylin, interview with the author.
39. Whyte, Organization Man, pp. 4, 5.
40. Memo to Director, FBI, August 30, 1955, BLANCH FBI.
41. Lillian Hellman to John S. Wood, May 19, 1952, reprinted in Hellman, Scoundrel Time, pp. 89–91.
42. Security Case of Gertrude Kaimowitz, aka Gertrude Blanch, aka Gertrude Blanch Cassidy, last dated August 30, 1955, p. 14, BLANCH FBI.
43. Director, FBI, to SAC Cincinnati, April 22, 1956, BLANCH FBI.
44. “Weeks Sees Ousting of ‘Holdovers’ Here,” Washington Evening Star.
45. Todd, “John Hamilton Curtiss” (1980).
46. Huskey, “SWAC.”
47. See U.S. Senate, “Testimony of Robert J. Ryan.”
48. John Curtiss to Allen V. Astin, March 8, 1953, ASTIN.
49. Wang, “Science, Security and the Cold War.”
50. Cochrane, Measures for Progress (1966), p. 484; Perry, The Story of Standards, pp. 197–201.
51. “Weeks Ends Silence in Forecasting Swing of Ax on Deadwood,” Washington Evening Star.
52. Astin, Oral History, p. 11.
53. Hestenes and Todd, NBS-INA—The Institute for Numerical Analysis, p. 37; see also “President Backs Weeks on Ouster,” New York Times; “Weeks Sees Ousting of ‘Holdovers’ Here,” Washington Evening Star.
54. Astin, Oral History, p. 11.
55. Cochrane, Measures for Progress (1966), pp. 484–86, 497.
56. Hestenes and Todd, NBS-INA—The Institute for Numerical Analysis, p. 24.
57. ElectroData News Release, March 24, 1954, ELECTRODATA.
58. See Personnel Lists, Mathematics Office, ELECTRODATA.
59. ElectroData Staff Minutes, March 3, 1954, box 24, ELECTRODATA.
60. Gertrude Blanch, interview with Michael Stern, approximately 1989, STERN.