Early Computer Pioneers Flashcards
Who is Ada Lovelace and what did she do?
She was an english mathematician and writer. She was known for her work on Charles Babbage’s proposed mechanical general purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognize the machine had applications beyond pure calculation. She published the first algorithm for said machine and is regarded as the first programmer.
Who is Alan Turing and what did he do?
He was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer.
He is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.
Who is Margaret Hamilton and what did she do?
is an American computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner. She was director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for NASA’s Apollo program. She later founded two software companies—Higher Order Software in 1976 and Hamilton Technologies in 1986, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Who is Admiral Grace Hopper and what did she do?
She was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of computer programming who invented one of the first linkers. Hopper was the first to devise the theory of machine-independent programming languages, and the FLOW-MATIC programming language she created using this theory was later extended to create COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today.
