- Wallace John Eckert
Wallace John Eckert (
June 19 ,1902 –August 24 ,1971 ) was an astronomer, and Director of the Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau atColumbia University . In January 1940, Eckert published "Punched Card Methods in Scientific Computation", which solved the problem of predicting theorbit s of theplanet s, using the IBM electric tabulating machines, based on thepunched card . This slim book is only 136 pages, including the index.Born in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , he earned his PhD from Yale in 1931 in astronomy.Application: solution of differential equations for astronomy
The Astronomical Computing Bureau was supported by Dr.
Thomas J. Watson , President ofIBM , including customer service and hardware circuit modifications needed to tabulate numbers, create mathematical tables, add, subtract, multiply, reproduce, verify, crossfoot, create tables of differences, create tables of logarithms and perform Lagrangian interpolation, all to solve differential equations for astronomical applications.Application: the Manhattan Project
When Dana Mitchell saw these operations in action, and later served in the
Manhattan Project (the wartime project to develop the firstnuclear weapon s), he mentioned this technique to the T-6 section of the Theoretical Division of theLos Alamos National Laboratory in the Manhattan Project; they were using the electromechanicalcalculator s of that time to perform the mathematical computations for mathematical expressions by hand, using humancomputer s, one person to perform the cube, one to add a number, etc.Nicholas Metropolis andRichard Feynman immediately set about organizing a punched card solution for a crucial mathematical expression, utilizing the techniques pioneered by Eckert and his IBM methods, such as the use of colored punched cards to signal the end of a series of cards, etc.ignificance of the computing laboratory
Eckert understood the significance of his laboratory, keenly aware of the advantage of scientific calculations performed without human interventions for long stretches of computation.
He won the
James Craig Watson Medal in 1966.ee also
*
Leslie Comrie
*IBM Electromatic Table Printing Machine External links
* [http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/eckert.html Columbia University Computing History: Professor Wallace J. Eckert]
* [http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/display.phtml?id=72 Oral history interview with Martin Schwarzschild] .Charles Babbage Institute , University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Schwarzschild was Eckert's immediate successor as director of the Watson Scientific Computation Laboratory at Columbia University.
* [http://special.lib.umn.edu/findaid/xml/cbi00009.xml Wallace J. Eckert Papers, 1931-1975] . [http://www.cbi.umn.edu Charles Babbage Institute] , University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
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