10 questions · Society & Everyday
Grace Hopper, born in New York in 1906, is a curious child: at seven she takes apart every alarm clock in the house to understand how they tick. She studies mathematics, earns a doctorate at Yale in 1934 and becomes a lecturer. When the United States enters the Second World War, she joins the Navy and is assigned to Harvard, where she works on one of the very first large computers: the tonne-heavy Mark I. The mathematician becomes one of the first programmers in history. Hopper has a visionary idea: people should not have to command computers in cryptic numeric code, but in words resembling ordinary language. In the 1950s she develops the first "compiler": a program that translates human-readable instructions into machine code. Many think it impossible at first. Her work leads to COBOL, one of the most influential programming languages ever, still running today in banks and government offices. One anecdote makes her immortal: in 1947 Hopper's colleagues find an actual moth caught in a relay of the computer, jamming it. They tape the insect into the logbook: "first actual case of bug being found". She thereby popularised the term "bug" for a computer fault and "debugging" for fixing it. With unmistakable humour and military sharpness, "Amazing Grace" becomes a legend: she returns to active duty several times and is eventually promoted to rear admiral: one of very few women of that rank. To illustrate a nanosecond she liked to hand out roughly 30-centimetre lengths of wire: the distance light travels in that tiny span of time. A US Navy destroyer, the USS Hopper, bears her name today.
Practise for freePurFact brings every card back right before you would forget it. That's how knowledge sticks.
computer science / programming
She was one of the very first people ever to program a computer.
💡 Did you know? Hopper was a mathematician and US Navy rear admiral: one of the most influential pioneers of early computing.
compiler
Hopper developed the first compiler: a program that translates human-readable code into machine language.
💡 Did you know? Many experts initially thought the idea was impossible.
COBOL
COBOL was designed to allow programming with English-like commands; it still runs in banks and governments today.
💡 Did you know? Hopper's idea of programming in near-English led to COBOL, for decades the most important business language of computers.
bug
In 1947 her team found an actual moth in a relay and taped it into the logbook with the note "first actual case of bug being found".
💡 Did you know? The word "bug" for a fault existed before: Hopper made it famous in computing.
Mark I
The tonne-heavy machine was one of the first programmable large computers ever built.
💡 Did you know? On Harvard's Mark I, a monster weighing tonnes, Hopper was one of the very first programmers.
rear admiral
She joined the Navy in 1943 and returned to active duty several times.
💡 Did you know? Her nickname was "Amazing Grace".
30 cm lengths of wire
She handed out these visual "nanoseconds" to audiences during her talks.
💡 Did you know? To show how short a nanosecond is, Hopper handed out 30-cm wires: the distance light travels in that time.
USS Hopper
In her honour the US Navy named a destroyer the „USS Hopper“: affectionately nicknamed „Amazing Grace.“
💡 Did you know? A major annual conference for women in computing also bears her name (the Grace Hopper Celebration).
Foto: James S. Davis · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Grace Hopper
Grace Hopper (1906 to 1992) was an American computer scientist and naval officer who developed the first compiler.
💡 Did you know? When a moth jammed an early computer, Hopper's team taped it into the logbook: the story popularised the term „bug“ for a computer fault.
1906
Born: 9 December 1906 in New York City
Society & Everyday: all topics →
Home · All topics · Legal notice · Privacy · Terms · Contact
