INTRODUCTION
A GRANDMOTHER’S SECRET LIFE
1. Record Books for Mathematics 49 (1918), Mathematics 53 (1918), Mathematics 4B (1920), BENTLEY.
2. Class Records, 1917–21, MICHIGAN; Annual Reports, BENTLEY.
3. Karpinsky, “James W. Glover.”
4. Glover, “Courses in Actuarial Mathematics.”
5. Letters for Baillo, deVries, Hall, and McDonald, Alumni Directories, 1937, 1953, ALUM.
6. Barlow, Barlow’s Tables, preface.
7. Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, p. 191.
8. Croarken and Campbell-Kelly, Table Making from Sumer to Spreadsheets, preface; McLeish, Number, pp. 26, 65–66.
9. Galison and Hevly, Big Science.
10. See, for example, Galison and Hevly, Big Science.
11. Cardwell, Norton History of Technology, pp. 105, 106.
12. Ibid., p. 107.
CHAPTER ONE
THE FIRST ANTICIPATED RETURN
1. Newton, Principia, preface.
2. Cook, Edmund Halley, p. 209.
3. Quoted in ibid., p. 210.
4. Ibid., p. 211.
5. Ibid., p. 212.
6. Edmund Halley to Isaac Newton, September 28, 1695, in MacPike, Correspondence of Edmund Halley, p. 92.
7. Edmond Halley to Isaac Newton, October 7, 1695, ibid., pp. 92–93.
8. Isaac Newton to Edmund Halley, October 17, 1695, ibid., pp. 93–94.
9. Cook, Edmund Halley, p. 211.
10. Halley, Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis (1705).
11. Rigaud, Some Account of Halley’s Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis, pp. 3–23; Broughton, “The First Predicted Return of Comet Halley.”
12. Halley, Astronomical Tables (1752); Broughton, “The First Predicted Return of Comet Halley,” has noted that if Halley used the old-style calendar, in which the year changes at the March equinox, then Halley’s prediction was very close to the actual date of March 13.
13. Halley, Astronomical Tables (1752).
14. Smith, A., “The Principles Which Lead and Direct Philosophical Enquiries” (1757), p. 48.
15. Messier and Maty, “A Memoir, Containing the History of the Return of the Famous Comet of 1682. …”
16. Gillispie, Dictionary of Scientific Biography.
17. Barker to Bradley, in Philosophical Transactions (1683–1775).
18. Alder, The Measure of All Things (2002), p. 78.
19. She is sometimes identified in the literature as Hortense Lepaute.
20. Lalande, Astronomie (1792), pp. 676–81.
21. Alder, The Measure of All Things (2002), p. 78.
22. Lalande, Astronomie (1792), pp. 676–81.
23. Wilson, “Clairaut’s Calculation of Halley’s Comet” (1993).
24. Lalande, Astronomie (1792), pp. 676–81.
25. Ibid.
26. Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Section 3.
27. Ibid.
28. Wilson, “Appendix: Clairaut’s Calculation of the Comet’s Return” (1995).
29. Wilson, “Clairaut’s Calculation of Halley’s Comet” (1993).
30. Lalande, Astronomie (1792), pp. 676–81.
31. Wilson, “Clairaut’s Calculation of Halley’s Comet” (1993).
32. Yeomans, “Comet Halley—The Orbital Motion” (1977).
33. Quoted in Gillispie, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, p. 283; Wilson, “Appendix: Clairaut’s Calculation of the Comet’s Return” (1995).
34. Wilson, “Appendix: Clairaut’s Calculation of the Comet’s Return” (1995).
35. Hobart and Schiffman, Information Ages, p. 166.
36. Jean d’Alembert quoted in Wilson (1993); Wilson (1995) gives a fairly complete account and assessment of the controversy.
37. Wilson, “Clairaut’s Calculation of Halley’s Comet” (1993).
38. Ibid.
39. Alexis Clairaut quoted in Wilson, “Appendix: Clairaut’s Calculation of the Comet’s Return” (1995).
40. Messier and Maty, “A Memoir, Containing the History of the Return of the Famous Comet of 1682. …”
41. Lalande, Astronomie (1792), pp. 676–81.
42. Ibid.
43. Stigler, “Stigler’s Law of Eponymy” (1999), p. 277.
CHAPTER TWO
THE CHILDREN OF ADAM SMITH
1. Smith, A., “The Principles Which Lead and Direct Philosophical Enquiries” (1757).
2. Foley, Social Physics of Adam Smith, p. 34.
3. Smith, A., Wealth of Nations (1776), book 1, chapter 1.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Car. II, 1675–76, p. 173, June 22, 1675, British Library, MS Birch 4393 f 104 r, v; Public Record Office, Kew, State Papers Domestic Entry Book 44, p. 10.
7. See Betts, Harrison, and Andrews, The Quest for Longitude.
8. Mayer, Tabulae Motuum Solis et Lunae Novae et Correctae (1770); Mayer, Theoria Lunae Juxta Systema Newtonianum (1767).
9. Leonhard Euler to Tobias Mayer, February 26, 1754, in Forbes (1971), Connaissance des Temps pour l’Année 1761, Paris, De l’Imprimerie Royale, 1761.
10. Sobel, Longitude.
11. Maskelyne, Nevil, “Memorial Presented to the Commissioners of the Longitude,” February 9, 1765, in Mayer, Tabulae Motuum Solis et Lunae Novae et Correctae (1770), pp. cxvii–cxx; see also Betts, Harrison (1993), and Andrews, The Quest for Longitude (1996).
12. Croarken, “Tabulating the Heavens.”
13. Ibid.
14. Maskelyne, The British Mariner’s Guide (1763), pp. iv–v.
15. Howse, Nevil Maskelyne, p. 60.
16. See Nevil Maskelyne to Joshua Moore, September 30, 1788, MOORE.
17. Maskelyne, “Preface,” Nautical Almanac for 1767.
18. Croarken, “Tabulating the Heavens.”
19. Maskelyne, “Preface,” Nautical Almanac for 1767.
20. Croarken, “Tabulating the Heavens.”
21. Howse, Nevil Maskelyne, p. 86; Croarken, “Tabulating the Heavens.”
22. Charles Talleyrand (1754–1838) quoted in Bradley, Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony, p. 16.
23. Porter, Trust in Numbers (1995), p. 24; Alder, “A Revolution to Measure” (2002), pp. 85–88.
24. Guillaume, Procès-Verbaux du Comité d’Instruction Publique (1897); Archibald, “Tables of Trigonometric Functions in Non-Sexagesimal Arguments” (1943).
25. Smith, C., “The Longest Run”; Bradley, Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony, pp. 5, 10.
26. Bradley, Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony, p. 10.
27. Smith, C., “The Longest Run.”
28. Bradley, Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony, p. 11.
29. Quoted ibid., p. 17.
30. Quoted ibid.
31. Quoted in Archibald, “Tables of Trigonometric Functions in Non-Sexagesimal Arguments,” (1943).
32. Quoted in Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1835), p. 193.
33. Smith, C., “The Longest Run”; see also Daston, “Enlightenment Calculations.”
34. Quoted in Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, p. 193.
35. Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers.”
36. Quoted in Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, p. 194.
37. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital, p. 220.
38. Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers.” The planners included Marc-Antoine Parseval (d. 1836), whose name is associated with “Parseval’s inequality.” Kline, Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, p. 716.
39. Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, pp. 193, 194.
40. Ibid., p. 194.
41. Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers.”
42. Lalande, Bibliographie Astronomique avec l’Histoire de l’Astronomie (1802), pp. 743–44.
43. Bradley, Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony, pp. 19, 10.
44. See Guillaume, Procès-Verbaux du Comité d’Instruction Publique (1904), pp. 556–61.
45. Alder, “A Revolution to Measure” (1995).
46. Quoted in Bradley, Gaspard Clair François Marie Riche de Prony, p. 68.
47. Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers”; Charles Babbage to Sir Humphrey Davy, July 3, 1822, in Morrison and Morrison, Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines, pp. 298–305.
48. Hyman, Charles Babbage, pp. 29, 39–40.
49. See Schaffer, “Babbage’s Intelligence” (1994), p. 204.
50. Hyman, Charles Babbage, p. 34.
51. Ashworth, “The Calculating Eye.”
52. “Prospectus for the Astronomical Society,” 1820, RAS.
53. Babbage, History of the Invention of the Calculating Engines.
54. Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), p. 31.
55. See Swade, The Cogwheel Brain, pp. 26–27.
56. Hyman, Charles Babbage, pp. 40–41; Grattan-Guinness, “Work for the Hairdressers.”
57. Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1835), p. 191.
58. Ibid., p. 187.
59. Williams, A History of Computing Technology, pp. 124, 129.
60. Cardwell, Norton History of Technology, p. 230.
61. Williams, A History of Computing Technology, p. 145.
62. Charles Babbage to Sir Humphrey Davy, July 3, 1822, in Morrison and Morrison, Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines, p. 305.
63. Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, section 3, chapter 5.
64. Charles Babbage to Sir Humphrey Davy, July 3, 1822, in Morrison and Morrison, Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines, p. 305.
65. Dreyer and Turner, History of the Royal Astronomical Society, appendix: medal winners.
66. Baily, “On Mr. Babbage’s New Machine” (1823).
67. Hyman, Charles Babbage, p. 65.
68. Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1835), p. 267.
69. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann, p. 19.
70. Lovelace, “Notes by the Translator,” in Morrison and Morrison, Charles Babbage and His Calculating Engines, p. 251.
71. Hyman, Charles Babbage, p. 165.
72. Babbage, Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, p. 169.
THE CELESTIAL FACTORY
1. Dickens, Charles, Hard Times, Project Gutenberg Edition, “The Keynote.”
2. Yeomans, Comets.
3. Maunder, The Royal Observatory Greenwich, chapter 3.
4. Wilkins, “A History of H.M. Nautical Almanac Office,” p. 56.
5. Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 2, no. 2 (February 11, 1831), pp. 11–12.
6. Ibid., no. 25 (February 12,1830), p. 166.
7. Ashworth, “The Calculating Eye.”
8. South, “Report on Nautical Almanac” (1831), pp. 459–71, p. 461.
9. Dunkin, A Far Off Vision, p. 45.
10. Nautical Almanac for 1835, London, John Murray, 1833, p. 493.
11. Yeomans, Comets (1991), pp. 256–57.
12. Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 3, no. 20 (February 12, 1836), pp. 161–62.
13. Ibid.
14. Report by the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors for 1837, London, 1838.
15. Smith, R., “A National Observatory Transformed”; Cannon, Science and Culture, p. 38.
16. Smith, R., “A National Observatory Transformed.”
17. Quoted in Ashworth, “The Calculating Eye.”
18. The Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe is generally credited with giving the task of reduction to human computers.
19. Smith, R., “A National Observatory Transformed”; Schaffer, “Astronomers Mark Time” (1988), pp. 115–45; Maunder, The Royal Observatory Greenwich, p. 117; Dunkin, A Far Off Vision, p. 72.
20. W. H. M. Christie quoted in Meadows, Greenwich Observatory, vol. 2, p. 9.
21. Dunkin, A Far Off Vision, p. 45.
22. Ibid., p. 72.
23. Ibid., p. 96.
24. Dickens, Charles, Hard Times, Project Gutenberg Edition, “The Keynote.”
25. Maunder, The Royal Observatory Greenwich, p. 117.
26. Meadows, Greenwich Observatory, p. 11.
27. Dunkin, A Far Off Vision, p. 71.
28. Meadows, Greenwich Observatory, p. 7.
29. Chapman, “Sir George Airy,” p. 332.
30. Smith, Wealth of Nations, book I, chapter 1.
31. See Annual Reports of the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors, beginning in 1836.
32. George Airy to Henry Goulburn, September 16, 1842, 6-427, folder 68, GREENWICH.
33. Swade, The Cogwheel Brain, p. 153.
THE AMERICAN PRIME MERIDIAN
1. Latrobe, The History of Mason and Dixon’s Line.
2. Croarken, “Tabulating the Heavens” (2003); fragment labeled “Paper given at Columbian Institute,” undated correspondence, MOORE; Joshua I. Moore to Thomas Jefferson, September 7, 1805; Thomas Jefferson to Joshua I. Moore, September 19, 1805, JEFFERSON.
3. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, book 2, chapter 9.
4. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 42.
5. Dick and Doggett, Sky with Ocean Joined, p. 169; see also Dick, Sky with Ocean Joined.
6. Theberge, History of the Commissioned Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “personnel policies,” pp. 84ff. (“Investigation of 1842”).
7. Will of James Smithson, quoted in Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 66.
8. See Congressional Globe, 30th Cong., 2d sess., HR 699, “An Act Making appropriations for the naval service, for the year ending the thirtieth of June, 1850.”
9. Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893).
10. Matthew Fontaine Maury quoted in Waff, “Navigation vs. Astronomy.”
11. Anonymous (1849); Waff concludes that Peirce or Davis was the most likely author (see Waff, “Navigation vs. Astronomy,” p. 97).
12. Waff, “Navigation vs. Astronomy,” p. 97.
13. Davis, C. H., II, Life of Charles Henry Davis (1899), pp. 4, 64, 89.
14. Ibid., p. 91.
15. Ibid., p. 58.
16. Ibid., pp. 4, 64, 89.
17. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “Nature,” section 4.
18. Peterson, “Benjamin Peirce,” pp. 89–112.
19. Charles Henry Davis to William Ballard Preston, July 30, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
20. Davis, C. H., “Report of the Secretary of the Navy” (1852), p. 6.
21. Davis, C. H., “Report on the Nautical Almanac” (1852).
22. Charles Henry Davis to William Ballard Preston, July 30, 1849, box 15, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
23. Morando, “The Golden Age of Celestial Mechanics.”
24. Gottfried Galle to Jean Joseph Le Verrier, September 25, 1846, quoted ibid.
25. Thoreau, Walden, section 1, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.”
26. Charles Henry Davis to Charles Peirce, August 5, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
27. Tyler, John David Runkle; “Annual Report for the United States Navy for 1852,” p. 8.
28. Gould, “Commemoration of Sears Cook Walker.”
29. Ibid.
30. Benjamin Peirce to Matthew Fontaine Maury, January 21, 1846, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
31. Maury, Matthew, “Report on Leverrier,” Nautical Almanac Correspondence, January 1847, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
32. Maury, Matthew, Report to Secretary of the Navy, February 7, 1847, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
33. Charles Henry Davis to William Ballard Preston, “Reply on employing subordinate computers,” OBSERVATORY-LOC.
34. Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory, p. 384.
35. Fuller, Margaret, Women in the Nineteenth Century (1844), in The Essential Margaret Fuller, Jeffrey Steele, ed., New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1992, p. 260. See also her story of Miranda, pp. 261ff.
36. Wright, Sweeper in the Sky (1949), p. 23.
37. Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory, pp. 384–85.
38. Charles Henry Davis to Maria Mitchell, January 5, 1851, OBSERVATORY-LOC; U.S. Nautical Almanac for 1852.
39. Charles Henry Davis to Maria Mitchell, December 24, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
40. Charles Henry Davis to Maria Mitchell, December 24, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
41. Newcomb, The Reminiscences of an Astronomer, pp. 1, 75.
42. Charles Henry Davis to Otis E. Kendall, April 24, 1851, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
43. Charles Henry Davis to William A. Graham, June 19, 1851, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
44. Charles Henry Davis to the Secretary of the Navy, October 14, 1850, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
45. Waff, “Navigation vs. Astronomy,” p. 95.
46. Davis, C. H., Remarks on an American Prime Meridian (1849), p. 12.
47. Charles Henry Davis to William Preston, July 31, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
48. Charles Henry Davis to William Preston, July 31, 1849, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
49. Davis, C. H., Remarks on an American Prime Meridian (1849), pp. 32, 39.
50. Budgets for the Nautical Almanac Office, 1850, 1851, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
51. Comments of John P. Hale, Congressional Globe, n.s., no. 94, 32nd Cong., 1st sess., May 28, 1852, p. 1495.
52. Ibid.
53. Comments of George Badger, Congressional Globe, n.s., no. 94, 32nd Cong., 1st sess., May 28, 1852, p. 1495.
54. Davis, C. H., Report of Lieutenant Charles H. Davis (1852), pp. 7, 8; see also Davis, C. H., “Report on the Nautical Almanac” (1852).
55. Charles Henry Davis to August W. Smith, November 5, 1850, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
56. William Mitchell to Joseph Winlock, February 9, 1858, OBSERVATORY-LOC.
57. American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac (1855–60), Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office.
58. Davis, C. H., Life of Charles Henry Davis, (1899), pp. 4, 102.
59. Newcomb, The Reminiscences of an Astronomer, p. 65.
60. Archibald, “P. G. Scheutz and Edvard Scheutz” (1947).
61. Gould, Reply to the Statement of the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory (1859), p. 142; James, Elites in Conflict, p. 61.
62. Gould, Reply to the Statement of the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory (1859), p. 141; see also U.S. Naval Observatory Annual Report for 1858.
63. Gould, Reply to the Statement of the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory (1859), p. 141; Dudley Observatory Annual Report for 1864, p. 42.
64. Gould, Reply to the Statement of the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory (1859), p. 141.
65. U.S. Naval Observatory Annual Report for 1858.
66. Ibid.
67. Gould, Reply to the Statement of the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory (1859), p. 221.
68. U.S. Nautical Almanac for 1859, p. 1.
69. U.S. Nautical Almanac for 1860.
70. Ibid.
71. Herman, A Hilltop in Foggy Bottom, p. 17.
72. C. H. Davis to his family, June 14, 1861, quoted in Davis, C. H., Life of Charles Henry Davis (1899), p. 121.
73. C. H. Davis to his family, July 21, 1861, quoted ibid., p. 151.
74. C. H. Davis to his family, July 21, 1861, quoted ibid.
75. C. H. Davis to his family, September 18, 1861, quoted ibid., p. 134; Theberge, History of the Commissioned Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, p. 420.
CHAPTER FIVE
A CARPET FOR THE COMPUTING ROOM
1. Newcomb, The Reminiscences of an Astronomer, p. 342.
2. Davis, C. H., Life of Charles Henry Davis (1899), p. 102.
3. Lowell, James Russell, “The Present Crisis” (1856).
4. Davis, The Coast Survey of the United States (1849), p. 21.
5. “Annual Report of the U.S. Coast Survey for 1844,” p. 29.
6. Theberge, History of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, pp. 424ff.
7. See boxes 24–28, Ordnance 1856–1866, DAHLGREN.
8. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, p. 120.
9. Abbe, “Charles Schott.”
10. Charles Saunders Peirce to Alexander Dallas Bache, August 11, 1862, Correspondence of the Director, COAST-SURVEY.
11. Annual Report of the U.S. Coast Survey for 1864, pp. 92–93, 222–23.
12. See, for example, John Dahlgren to Commander Morris, March 1852, Correspondence 1852, DAHLGREN.
13. An Act to Incorporate the National Academy of Sciences, March 3, 1863.
14. Dupree, Science in the Federal Government, pp. 141–47.
15. Quoted in Ebling, “Why Government Entered the Field of Crop Reporting and Forecasting.”
16. Rasmussen and Baker, The Department of Agriculture, p. 6.
17. Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1854–1855, pp. 30, 186.
18. Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1851–1852, p. 168.
19. Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1856–1857, p. 28; Nebeker, Calculating the Weather, p. 13.
20. “Statement of the Assistant to the Chief Signal Officer,” in Testimony, pp. 113–30, 114.
21. Whithan, A History of the United States Weather Bureau, p. 19.
22. “Examination of Cleveland Abbe,” in Testimony, pp. 247–63, 258.
23. Bartky, Selling the True Time, p. 33.
24. Ibid.
25. Sears Cook Walker; Theberge, History of the Commissioned Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “The American Method of Longitude Determination,” note 12; Bartky, Selling the True Time, pp. 32ff.
26. Annual Report of the Harvard Observatory for 1859, p. 5.
27. Gauss, Theory of the Motion of the Heavenly Bodies.
28. Davis, C. H., Life of Charles Henry Davis (1899), p. 113.
29. Annual Report of U.S. Coast Survey for 1872, p. 50.
30. Annual Report of U.S. Coast Survey for 1868, p. 37.
31. Jarrold and Fromm, Time—The Great Teacher.
32. Doolittle obituary, Evening Star.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Annual Report of U.S. Naval Almanac for 1870.
36. Annual Report of U.S. Coast Survey for 1876, p. 81.
37. Doolittle obituary, Evening Star.
38. Charles Schott to Julius Hilgard, January 6, 1874, Report of the Computing Division 1869–1886, COAST-SURVEY.
39. Aron, “‘To Barter Their Souls for Gold.’”
40. Rotella, From Home to Office, pp. 15ff., 29.
41. Arthur Searle to Charles W. Eliot, July 12, 1875, box 68, HARVARD ELIOT.
42. Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory, p. 386.
43. Ibid., “Anna Winlock,” in Ogilvie and Harvey, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, pp. 1388–89.
44. Arthur Searle to Charles W. Eliot, July 12, 1875, box 68, HARVARD ELIOT.
45. Mack, “Strategies and Compromises: Women in Astronomy at Harvard College Observatory, 1870–1920.”
46. Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory, pp. 386, 387.
47. Margaret Harwood quoted ibid., p. 390.
48. Annual Report for Radcliffe, 1879, pp. 6, 14.
49. Annual Report of the Harvard Observatory for 1898, p. 6.
50. “Reply to visitors,” U.S. Naval Observatory, 1900, p. 10.
51. Welther, “Pickering’s Harem.”
52. “Reply to visitors,” U.S. Naval Observatory, 1900, p. 11.
53. “Staff listing of the Naval Observatory,” U.S. Naval Observatory, 1901.
54. Annual Report of the U.S. Coast Survey for 1893, p. 119; Carter, Cook, and Luzum, “The Contributions of Women to the Nautical Almanac Office, the First 150 Years.”
55. Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory, p. 189.
56. Upton, “Observatory Pinafore,” p. 1.
57. There are two versions of the manuscript. In one, Josephine is treated as a female, though she is clearly one of the male astronomers. In the other, male pronouns have been substituted.
58. Upton, “Observatory Pinafore,” p. 7.
59. Ibid., p. 5.
60. Ibid., p. 3.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid., p. 5.
63. Ibid., p. 9. The observatory history notes that there were six female computers in 1881 (Jones and Boyd, The Harvard College Observatory, p. 388).
64. Annual Report of the Harvard Observatory for 1880, p. 16.
65. Upton, “Observatory Pinafore, p. 16.
66. Ibid., p. 29.
CHAPTER SIX
LOOKING FORWARD, LOOKING BACKWARD
1. Hopp, Slide Rules.
2. Logarithm base 10.
3. Hopp, Slide Rules, Appendix 2, Key Dates in the History of Slide Rules.
4. Quoted in ibid., Appendix 2.
5. Ibid.; Riddell, The Slide Rule Simplified.
6. Williams, A History of Computing Technology, p. 128.
7. Cortada, Before the Computer, p. 35. See also Kidwell, “The Adding Machine Fraternity at St. Louis: Creating a Center of Invention,” and “‘Yours for improvement’—The Adding Machines of Chicago, 1884–1930.”
8. Gray, “On the Arithmometer of M. Thomas (de Colmar)”; Johnston, “Making the Arithmometer Count”; Kidwell, “From Novelty to Necessity.”
9. Jevons, “Remarks on the Statistical Use of the Arithmometer.”
10. Dreieser, Sister Carrie.
11. Cortada, Before the Computer, pp. 31ff., 39ff.
12. U.S. Coast Survey Annual Report for 1890, p. 119.
13. Austrian, Herman Hollerith, p. 6.
14. Williams, A History of Computing Technology, pp. 248ff.
15. Report of a Commission Appointed by the Honorable Superintendent of Census on Different Methods of Tabulating Census Data.
16. Quoted in Porter, “The Eleventh Census.”
17. Chicago Tribune, August 8, 1890, quoted in Austrian, Herman Hollerith, p. 62; ibid., pp. 61–62.
18. Handy, Official Directory of the World’s Columbian Exposition, p. 157.
19. T. Talcott to H. Talcott, May 22, 1893, quoted in Austrian, Herman Hollerith, ibid., pp. 100–101.
20. U.S. Coast Survey Annual Report for 1892, p. 145.
21. Adams, Education of Henry Adams, chapter 12, “Chicago.”
22. Ibid.
23. Handy, Official Directory of the World’s Columbian Exposition, p. 199.
24. The World’s Congress Auxiliary of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, WCE.
25. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University, p. 128.
26. “Program of the Congress on Mathematics and Astronomy,” 1893, WCE.
27. Account Books of Artemas Martin, MARTIN.
28. Finkel, “Biography: Artemas Martin.”
29. “Program of the Congress on Mathematics and Astronomy,” WCE.
30. Kline, R., Steinmetz: Engineer and Socialist, p. 71.
31. Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893).
32. Porter, T., The Rise of Statistical Thinking, p. 23.
33. Fitzpatrick, “Leading American Statisticians in the Nineteenth Century”; “Membership List, 1840” (American Statistical Association Membership).
34. “The International Statistical Institute at Chicago.”
35. Ralph, “Chicago’s Gentle Side”; The World’s Congress Auxiliary of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, WCE.
36. Adams, Education of Henry Adams, chapter 4.
37. Ibid., chapter 12, “Chicago.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
DARWIN’S COUSINS
1. Hamilton, Newnham, p. 136.
2. Pearl, “Karl Pearson.”
3. Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, act 1.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Rossiter, Women Scientists in America, pp. 52, 72.
7. “Maxims for Revolutionaries,” in Shaw, Man and Superman.
8. Stigler, History of Statistics, p. 266; see also Porter, The Rise of Statistical Thinking, p. 271.
9. Quoted in Kelves, In the Name of Eugenics, p. 5.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., p. 6.
12. Francis Galton to Darwin Galton, February 23, 1851, in Pearson, The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton, pp. 231–32.
13. Francis Galton to Darwin Galton, February 23, 1851, ibid.
14. Kelves, In the Name of Eugenics, p. 7.
15. Gillham, A Life of Sir Francis Galton, p. 148.
16. Stigler, History of Statistics, p. 268.
17. Galton, “Kinship and Correlation,” pp. 419–31.
18. Stigler, History of Statistics, pp. 283–90. For an elementary modern treatment that shows the relationship between correlation coefficient and regression slope, see Freedman et al., Statistics.
19. Galton, “Regression towards Mediocrity in Hereditary Stature,” p. 255.
20. Galton, “Kinship and Correlation.”
21. Pearson, “Walter Frank Raphael Weldon,” pp. 14, 24, 25.
22. Ibid., p. 18.
23. Ibid.
24. Porter, Karl Pearson, p. 3.
25. Haldane, “Karl Pearson”; Pearl, “Karl Pearson.”
26. Porter, Karl Pearson, p. 12.
27. Walkowitz, “Science, Feminism, and Romance.”
28. Pearson, “Walter Frank Raphael Weldon,” p. 18.
29. Pearson, “Mathematical Contributions to the Theory of Evolution.”
30. Pearson to Foster, “Draper’s Company Grant,” November 26, 1904, in Pearson, E., “Karl Pearson.”
31. Pearson, “Cooperative Investigations on Plants.”
32. Magnello, “The Non-correlation of Biometrics and Eugenics.”
33. Pearson, “Cooperative Investigations on Plants.” (1902).
34. Love, “Alice in Eugenics-Land.”
35. Alice Lee to Pearson, December 1, 1895, and June 14, 1897, PEARSON, 01135, quoted ibid.
36. Love, “Alice in Eugenics-Land.”
37. Pearson, Life, Letters and Labour of Francis Galton, vol. 3, p. 359.
38. Love, “Alice in Eugenics-Land.”
39. Karl Pearson to Simon Newcomb, June 26, 1903, NEWCOMB.
40. Pearson, E., “An Appreciation of Some Aspects” (1938).
41. Pearson, K., “The Scope of Biometrika” (1901).
42. Karl Pearson to Beatrice Cave, November 25, 1907, 01137/1, PEARSON, University College London, quoted in Love, “Alice in Eugenics-Land.”
43. Frances Cave-Browne-Cave, unsigned obituary, CBC.
44. Soper et al., “On the Distribution of the Correlation Coefficient”; Cave and Pearson, “Numerical Illustrations of the Variate Difference Correlation Method.”
45. Frances Cave-Browne-Cave, unsigned obituary, CBC; Biographical Information forms for Frances and Beatrice Cave-Browne-Cave, GIRTON.
46. Cole, Growing Up into Revolution.
47. Cave-Brown-Cave and Pearson, “On the Correlation between the Barometric Height.”
48. Cave-Brown-Cave, F., “On the Influence of the Time Factor on the Correlation.”
49. Pearson, K., “On the Laws of Inheritance in Man,” p. 136.
50. Pearson, E., “Karl Pearson,” p. 199.
51. Journal of Wilhamina Paton Fleming, entry of March 4, 1900.
52. The bombing occurred on February 15, 1894; Taylor, “Propaganda by Deed—The Greenwich Observatory Bomb of 1894.”
53. Quoted in Meadows, Greenwich Observatory, p. 14.
54. Taylor, “Propaganda by Deed—The Greenwich Observatory Bomb of 1894.”
55. Conrad, The Secret Agent, chapter 2.
56. “Computers” (an announcement of the computing exam for 1906), December 19, 1905, OBSERVATORY-NARA; for vacancies, see Almanac and Observatory rosters for 1890–1905, OBSERVATORY-NARA.
57. “From the Unpopular Side.”
58. Newcomb, The Reminiscences of an Astronomer, p. 223.
59. Henry Meier to Simon Newcomb, August 9, 1884, ALMANAC.
60. Newcomb, The Reminiscences of an Astronomer, pp. 223–24.
61. “Nautical Almanac Investigation.”
62. See “Scientists at Sword’s Points.”
63. “Nautical Almanac Office Moved.”
64. Karl Pearson to Simon Newcomb, May 26, 1899, NEWCOMB.
65. Karl Pearson to Simon Newcomb, June 26, 1903, NEWCOMB.
66. Newcomb, “Abstract Science in America” (1876), p. 88; Simon Newcomb to Secretary of Carnegie Institution of Washington, May 12, 1906, 653/2, PEARSON.
67. Simon Newcomb to Secretary of Carnegie Institution of Washington, May 12, 1906, 653/2, PEARSON.
68. Newcomb, “The work of the Carnegie Institution,” NEWCOMB.
69. Memo of Simon Newcomb, 1904, NEWCOMB.
70. H. H. Turner to Simon Newcomb, November 25, 1903, 653/2, PEARSON.
71. Simon Newcomb to Karl Pearson, November 21, 1904, 773/7, PEARSON.
72. Memo to Simon Newcomb, January 2, 1905, NEWCOMB.
73. Pearson, E., “An Appreciation of Some Aspects.”
74. Ibid.
75. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, p. 34.
76. Pearson, E., “An Appreciation of Some Aspects.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
BREAKING FROM THE ELLIPSE
1. Crommelin, “Note on the Approaching Return of Halley’s Comet” (1906).
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Report of the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory for 1906.
5. Employee Roster for 1910, box 10, ALMANAC.
6. Cowell and Crommelin, The Return of Halley’s Comet in 1910, p. 11.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Twain, Works.
11. “Comet’s Poisonous Tail,” New York Times, February 8, 1910, p. 1.
12. Cowell and Crommelin, The Return of Halley’s Comet in 1910, p. 11.
13. Whittaker and Robinson, The Calculus of Observations, p. v.
14. Erdélyi, “Edmund T. Whittaker.”
15. Gibbs, A Course in Interpolation, pp. 1–2.
16. Whittaker and Robinson, The Calculus of Observations, p. v.
17. Kline, Mathematical Thought, p. 710.
18. Croarken, Early Scientific Computing in Britain, p. 25; Davis, Tables of Higher Mathematical Functions, vol. 1, p. 3.
CHAPTER NINE
CAPTAINS OF ACADEME
1. Karl Pearson to L. Gregory, February 23, 1916, 600, PEARSON.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Adelaide Davin to Karl Pearson, September 9, 1915, 674/9, PEARSON.
6. Karl Pearson, manuscript dated July 6, 1920, PEARSON.
7. Karl Pearson to L. Gregory, February 23, 1916, 600, PEARSON.
8. See correspondence between A. H. Webb and Karl Pearson, June–July 1916, 602, PEARSON.
9. McShane et al., Exterior Ballistics, p. 758.
10. Ibid., p. 778.
11. Di Scala, Italy: From Revolution to Republic, p. 121.
12. Siacci, “Rational and Practical Ballistics.”
13. Bliss, Mathematics for Exterior Ballistics, p. 28; U.S. Army, Ballisticians in War and Peace, p. 3; Zabecki, Steel Wind, p. 13.
14. McShane et al., Exterior Ballistics, p. 783.
15. Bliss, Mathematics for Exterior Ballistics, p. 28.
16. Littlewood, Collected Papers of J. E. Littlewood, p. xxx.
17. Beatrice Cave-Browne-Cave to Karl Pearson, August 20, 1916, 606, PEARSON.
18. Beatrice Cave-Browne-Cave to Karl Pearson, July 21, 1916, 606, PEARSON.
19. Adelaide Davin to Karl Pearson, August 20, 1915, 674, PEARSON.
20. See correspondence between Kristina Smith and Karl Pearson, 1917, 857/6, PEARSON; Smith did research computation for Pearson during this period.
21. Karl Pearson to A. V. Hill, February 15, 1917, 606, PEARSON.
22. Karl Pearson to B. M. Cave, September 29, 1916, 909/8, PEARSON.
23. A. V. Hill to Karl Pearson, December 12, 1916, 606, PEARSON.
24. Mrs. Cain to Karl Pearson, March 30, 1917, 606, PEARSON.
25. Wimperis to Karl Pearson, August 23, 1916, 606; Huie to Karl Pearson, March 7, 1917, 603; Douglas to Karl Pearson, July 7, 1917, 606; Hill to Karl Pearson, March 15, 1918, 606, PEARSON.
26. A. E. Moore to Pearson, September 25, 1917, 606, PEARSON.
27. Herbert W. Richmond to Karl Pearson, October 4, 1917, 606, PEARSON.
28. Herbert W. Richmond to Karl Pearson, October 7, 1917, 606, PEARSON.
29. A. V. Hill to Karl Pearson, October 1917, 606, PEARSON.
30. Herbert W. Richmond to Karl Pearson, October 7, 1917, 606, PEARSON.
31. Fowler to Karl Pearson, November 17, 1917, 606, PEARSON.
32. Pearson as summarized by A. V. Hill to Karl Pearson, December 28, 1917, 606, PEARSON.
33. A. E. Moore to Karl Pearson, April 10, 1918, 606b, PEARSON.
34. Kristina Smith to Karl Pearson, March 26, 1918, 209, PEARSON.
35. Mills, W., Road to War, p. 210.
36. Ernest Hemingway to his parents, October 18, 1918, in Villard and Nagel, Hemingway in Love and War, pp. 186–87.
37. Collins, Princeton in the World War, pp. xii–xiv.
38. Christman, Sailors, Scientists and Rockets, p. 18.
39. Moulton, History of the Ballistics Branch, p. 2; Oswald Veblen Diaries, March 23, 1917, VEBLEN.
40. E. H. Moore to Oswald Veblen, January 4, 1918, VEBLEN.
41. Service Record of Oswald Veblen, Records of Ordnance Officers, 1915–1919, vol. 6, ORDNANCE.
42. Crowell, America’s Munitions: 1917–1918, pp. 548, 550.
43. History of Proving Grounds, Reports, Histories and Guides, E 522, ORDNANCE.
44. E. H. Moore to Oswald Veblen, January 4, 1918, VEBLEN.
45. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Technical Report 84, p. 1.
46. McShane et al., Exterior Ballistics, p. 234.
47. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Technical Report 12, p. 2 (Veblen presumed author).
48. Oswald Veblen 1918 Diary, VEBLEN; Aberdeen Proving Ground, Technical Report 12, p. 1.
49. American Men of Science, 5th ed., New York, Science Press, 1933, p. 937.
50. Farebrother, Memoir on the Life of Myrrick Doolittle; “Myrrick Haskell/Doolittle,” Washington Evening Star; Coast Survey Annual Report for 1911.
51. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Technical Report 12, p. 2.
52. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Technical Report 84, p. 1.
53. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Annual Report for 1919, Appendix 37, p. 13, ORDNANCE.
54. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Technical Report 84, pp. 3, 1.
55. Moulton, History of the Ballistics Branch, p. 71.
56. Order of March 1, 1918, Circular Orders of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, ORDNANCE.
57. John W. Langley, Member of Congress from Kentucky, quoted in Stevens, Jailed for Freedom, p. 135.
58. “Boston Woman Is Rated Insurance Expert Deluxe.”
59. Dos Passos, 42nd Parallel, p. 137.
60. Moulton, History of the Ballistics Branch, pp. 2–8.
61. Ibid., pp. 35–38.
62. Dunham Jackson, undated note (probably 1940s), WILSON PAPERS.
63. Moulton, History of the Ballistics Branch, pp. 6–7.
64. Ibid., p. 6.
65. Oswald Veblen Diaries, August 23, 1918, VEBLEN.
66. Wiener, Ex-Prodigy, p. 254.
67. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Technical Report 12, p. 2.
68. Moulton, History of the Ballistics Branch, p. 50.
69. Ibid., p. ii.
70. “Boston Woman Is Rated Insurance Expert Deluxe.”
71. Wiener, Ex-Prodigy, p. 257.
72. Masani, Norbert Wiener, 1894–1964, p. 68.
73. Wiener, Ex-Prodigy, p. 258.
74. Fussell, The Great War, p. 161.
75. Richardson, Weather Prediction by Numerical Process, p. 219.
76. Ibid., p. vii.
77. Ibid., p. ix.
78. Ibid., p. 219.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid., pp. 219–20.
CHAPTER TEN
WAR PRODUCTION
1. Crowell, America’s Munitions, p. 16.
2. Cortada, Before the Computer, p. 81.
3. Pugh, Building IBM, p. 14.
4. Benedict, “Development of Agricultural Statistics in the Bureau of the Census.”
5. Pugh, Building IBM, pp. 26–27.
6. Cortada, Before the Computer, pp. 80–81.
7. Pearl and Burger, “Retail Prices.”
8. Ibid.
9. Ezekiel, “Reminiscences of Mordecai Ezekiel,” p. 13; “Hog Astronomy.” “The great progress which has been made in agricultural economics is doubtless due to the liberality of Congress toward the Department of Agriculture. Twenty years ago the total allowances for that department, including permanent appropriations were but little more than $5,000,000. For the current fiscal year, the total, including the road fund and the ‘permanent’ items, is $139,000,000, which accounts in part for the great strides made in what might be termed hog astronomy” (“Hog Astronomy,” p. 51).
10. Hoover, “Testimony before Senate Committee on Agriculture.”
11. See Food Administration Graphical Records, LOC.
12. Wallace, Agricultural Prices (1920), p. 30.
13. Friedberger, Shake-Out: Iowa Farm Families in the 1980s, p. 20.
14. Sinclair, The Jungle.
15. Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, p. 16.
16. Winters, “The Hoover-Wallace Controversy,” pp. 586–97.
17. Gen. 41:29-30.
18. Gen. 41:49, 57; Wallace, “Who Plays the Part of Joseph?” (1912).
19. Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, p. 20.
20. Yule, An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics; Ezekiel, “Henry A. Wallace,” p. 791.
21. Wallace, Agricultural Prices (1920), pp. 30, 34.
22. Ibid. He later went back through the data from the nineteenth century to verify his ideas.
23. Gen. 41:39-40.
24. Gen. 41:40.
25. Wallace, Agricultural Prices (1920), p. 34.
26. Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, p. 49.
27. Moulton, History of the Ballistics Branch, p. 88.
28. Wiener, Ex-Prodigy, pp. 255–56.
29. De Weerd, “American Adoption of French Artillery 1917–1918,” pp. 104–16.
30. Christman, Sailors, Scientists and Rockets, p. 27.
31. Kennedy, Over Here, p. 251.
32. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Technical Report 84, p. 2.
33. Wiener, Ex-Prodigy, pp. 255, 257.
34. Price, “American Mathematicians in World War I.”
35. Dunham Jackson, undated note (probably 1940s), WILSON PAPERS.
36. Evans, “Elizabeth W. Wilson Has Won Distinction”; Radcliffe College Alumnae Information Form, 1937, WILSON PAPERS.
37. Orders for Major Oswald Veblen, USA, October 10 &16, 1918, Records of Ordnance Officers, 1915–19, vol. 6, ORDNANCE.
38. Oswald Veblen Diary, November 9, 1918, VEBLEN.
39. See Oswald Veblen Diaries, VEBLEN; Grier, “Dr. Veblen Gets a Uniform.”
40. “Orders,” April 23, 1919, VEBLEN.
41. Phil Schwartz to Oswald Veblen, August 10, 1919, VEBLEN.
42. Karl Pearson, manuscript dated July 6, 1920, PEARSON.
43. Croarken, Early Scientific Computing in Britain (1990), p. 24.
44. Porter, Karl Pearson, p. 3.
45. Pairman, Tables of the Digamma, p. 1.
46. Ibid.
47. Pearson, “On the Construction of Tables and on Interpolation.” parts 1 and 2; Rhodes, E., “On Smoothing”; Irwin, “On Quadrature and Cubature.”
48. Henderson, Bibliotheca Tabularum Mathematicarum, p. 2.
49. Pairman, Tables of the Digamma, pp. 1–2.
50. Thompson, Logarithmetica Britannica, p. 1.
51. Ibid., pp. 1–2.
52. Martin, Die Rechenmaschinen.
53. Thompson, Logarithmetica Britannica, p. 1.
54. See Archibald, “Reviews” (1921); Archibald, “Reviews” (1924).
FRUITS OF THE CONFLICT
1. Cortada, Before the Computer, p. 81.
2. Tolley, “Interview.”
3. Ibid.; Tolley and Ezekiel, “The Doolittle Method” (1927).
4. Tolley, “Interview.”
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Tolley, Memo on a course on least squares, November 16, 1922, TOLLEY.
10. Tolley and Ezekiel, “A Method of Handling Multiple Correlation Problems.”
11. Brandt, “Uses of the Progressive Digit Method.”
12. Tolley and Ezekiel, “A Method of Handling Multiple Correlation Problems.”
13. “BAE News,” vol. 8, no. 18, BAE.
14. Special Report of Howard Tolley, February 23, 1923, TOLLEY.
15. Ibid.
16. Cortada, Before the Computer, pp. 56–59.
17. “BAE News,” vol. 8, no. 18, BAE.
18. Employee List of Tabulating Bureau, December 3, 1926, BAE.
19. “BAE News,” vol. 8, no. 18, BAE.
20. Ezekiel, “Henry A. Wallace,” p. 791.
21. Wallace, “What Is an Iowa Farm Worth?” (1924), pp. 1ff.
22. Ezekiel, “Henry A. Wallace,” p. 791.
23. See Iowa State University, Annual Report, 1950–51, “John Evvard [sic].”
24. Henry Wallace to C. Cuthbert Hurd, February 21, 1965, NMAH.
25. Cox and Homeyer, “Professional and Personal Glimpses of George W. Snedecor.”
26. Wallace and Snedecor, Correlation and Machine Calculation, p. 1.
27. Lush, “Early Statistics at Iowa State University,” p. 220.
28. Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, p. 147.
29. “Interview with Mary Clem by Uta Merzbach,” June 27, 1969, pp. 1, 7–8, SMITHSONIAN.
30. Report of the Mathematics Department for 1928, Vice President for Research File, 6/1/1, ISU; see also Snedecor, “Uses of Punched Card Equipment.”
31. Annual Report of Mathematics Department for 1928, Vice President for Research File, 6/1/1, ISU.
32. See Baehne, Practical Applications of the Punched Card Method, “Introduction and Table of Contents.”
33. “Interview with Mary Clem by Uta Merzbach,” June 27, 1969, pp. 1, 7–8, SMITHSONAIN.
34. “Mary Clem.”
35. “Interview with Mary Clem by Uta Merzbach,” June 27, 1969, pp. 22, 32, SMITHSONIAN.
36. MacDonald, Henry Wallace, p. 118.
37. Henry Wallace to George Snedecor, May 23, 1931, HAW.
38. Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, pp. 163, 176.
39. “A Quarter Century of Transcontinental Telephone Service”; Mills, “The Line and the Laboratory.”
40. Froelich, Clara, “Biographical Information Form,” Barnard College Archives.
41. Price, “Award for Distinguished Service to Dr. Thornton Carl Fry.”
42. Reich, The Making of American Industrial Research, p. 2.
43. “Mathematical Research.”
44. Millman, A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System, p. 352.
45. “Mathematical Research.”
46. Comrie, L. J., “Inverse Interpolation and Scientific Applications of the National Accounting Machine” (1936).
47. Ibid.
48. Croarken, Early Scientific Computing in Britain, p. 24.
49. Ibid.
50. L. J. Comrie to T. D. Scott, November 28, 1924, Walter Dill Scott Papers, box 13, folder 10 (College of Liberal Arts: Department of Astronomy) Series 3/51/1, Northwestern University Archives.
51. Croarken, Early Scientific Computing in Britain, p. 25. For an interim period of six months, he served as an assistant in the almanac office.
52. Comrie, L. J., “Inverse Interpolation and Scientific Applications of the National Accounting Machine” (1936).
53. Ibid.
54. L. J. Comrie to Wallace Eckert, January 25, 1940, ECKERT.
55. Croarken and Campbell-Kelly, “Beautiful Numbers,” pp. 44–61.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid.; Croarken, “Case 5,656.”
58. Croarken and Campbell-Kelly, “Beautiful Numbers”; Croarken, “Case 5,656.”
59. Croarken and Campbell-Kelly, “Beautiful Numbers.”
60. Ibid.; Croarken, “Case 5,656”; L. J. Comrie to Karl Pearson, June 1, 1933, 665/9, PEARSON.
61. Archibald, “BAASMTC Vol. 1.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE BEST OF BAD TIMES
1. Executive Order of 1918, “National Research Council,” in Cochrane, The National Academy of Sciences (1978), appendix.
2. Douglas Miller to Frank Schlesinger, June 27, 1930, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
3. F. K. Richtmyer to D. C. Miller, October 9, 1930, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
4. Frank Schlesinger to F. K. Richtmyer, June 19, 1930, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
5. F. K. Richtmyer to Frank Schlesinger, June 24, 1930, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
6. F. K. Richtmyer to D. C. Miller, October 9, 1933, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
7. Bush, “The Differential Analyzer” (1931), n. 6.
8. Ibid.
9. D. C. Miller to F. K. Richtmyer, October 28, 1933, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
10. Thornton Fry to F. K. Richtmyer, December 22, 1930, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
11. Thornton Fry to F. K. Richtmyer, January 19, 1931, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
12. Henry Reitz to F. K. Richtmyer, March 23, 1934, Correspondence 1934–36, NRC-MTAC.
13. Thornton Fry to F. K. Richtmyer, January 19, 1931, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
14. National Research Council, International Critical Tables (1926), p. ii.
15. F. K. Richtmyer to Thornton Fry, January 21, 1931, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
16. F. K. Richtmyer to Thornton Fry, May 5, 1931, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
17. F. K. Richtmyer to Thornton Fry, June 4, 1931, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
18. This image comes from book 35 of Pliny’s Natural History. He would quote the proverb in Latin: “Ne sutor ultra crepidam.”
19. Davis, H. T., Adventures of an Ultra-Crepidarian (1962), pp. 61–62.
20. Ibid., p. 98.
21. Ibid., pp. 174, 198.
22. Ibid., pp. 203, 294.
23. Ibid., p. 242.
24. Bryan, “The Life of the Professor.”
25. William Rawles to W. L. Bryan, January 18, 1927, IU BRYAN; Davis, H. T., Adventures of an Ultra-Crepidarian, pp. 240–41, 271–72.
26. Thornton Fry to F. K. Richtmyer, January 19, 1931, Correspondence 1930–33, NRC-MTAC.
27. Davis, H. T., Adventures of an Ultra-Crepidarian, pp. 271–72.
28. Ibid.
29. Henry Reitz to F. K. Richtmyer, March 23, 1934, Correspondence 1934–36, NRC-MTAC.
30. Davis, H. T., Adventures of an Ultra-Crepidarian, p. 273.
31. Davis, H. T., Tables of the Higher Mathematical Functions, pp. xi–xiii.
32. Davis, H. T., Adventures of an Ultra-Crepidarian, p. 297.
33. Reiman, The New Deal and American Youth, p. 130.
34. Undated memo from Ardis Monk, head of the computing office, UC PHYSICS.
35. Davis, H. T., Adventures of an Ultra-Crepidarian, pp. 319, 337.
36. Fletcher et al., Index of Tables, pp. 804–6.
37. Comrie, L. J., “Tables of Higher Functions,” Mathematical Gazette, vol. 20, 1936, pp. 225–27.
38. Comrie, “Inverse Interpolation” (1936); Fletcher et al., Index of Tables, pp. 804–6.
39. Fletcher et al., Index of Tables, pp. 804–6.
40. “History of the Arkansas, Louisiana & Mississippi Railroad Company,” http://www.almrailroad.com/history.htm.
41. Cowles Commission, Report of Research Activities, July 1, 1964–June 30, 1967.
42. Christ, History of the Cowles Commission (1952), p. 7.
43. Carl Christ suggests that Davis may have known of some method to compute regression equations with tabulators (ibid., p. 8).
44. Davis, H. T., Adventures of an Ultra-Crepidarian, pp. 299–300.
45. Ibid., p. 302.
46. Dates unknown; she took her BA in 1927; Colorado College Library Special Collections; Davis, H. T., Tables of the Higher Mathematical Functions, p. 193.
47. Cowles, A., “Can Stock Market Forecasters Forecast?” (1933).
48. Davis, H. T., Adventures of an Ultra-Crepidarian, p. 302; Christ, History of the Cowles Commission, p. 4; Elizabeth Webb Wilson Scrapbooks, vol. 3, p. 40, WILSON PAPERS.
49. Christ, History of the Cowles Commission, p. 10.
50. Elizabeth Webb Wilson Scrapbooks, vol. 3, p. 40, WILSON PAPERS.
51. “Boston Woman Is Rated Insurance Expert Deluxe.” See also Wilson, Compulsory Health Insurance.
52. Veblen, T., The Higher Learning in America (1918), p. 124.
53. Feffer, “Oswald Veblen.”
54. Rodgers, Think, p. 134.
55. Pugh, Building IBM (1995), pp. 34–45.
56. Rodgers, Think, p. 135.
57. Benjamin Wood, interview by Henry Tropp, p. 1, SMITHSONIAN.
58. In his Smithsonian interview, Wood quotes Watson as saying that IBM had no installations in government offices before 1928 (ibid., p. 32), yet Wood clearly had Watson’s attention.
59. Benjamin Wood, interview by Henry Tropp, p. 6, SMITHSONIAN.
60. Watson and Petre, Father and Son and Company, p. 37.
61. Benjamin Wood, interview by Henry Tropp, p. 11, SMITHSONIAN.
62. Watson and Petre, Father and Son and Company, p. 37.
63. Benjamin Wood, interview by Henry Tropp, p. 12, SMITHSONIAN.
64. Brennan, The IBM Watson Laboratory, p. 141.
65. Benjamin Wood, interview by Henry Tropp, p. 12, SMITHSONIAN.
66. Brown, E. W., The Motion of the Moon.
67. Comrie, L. J., “The Application of the Hollerith Tabulating Machine” (1932).
68. L. J. Comrie to Wallace J. Eckert, May 1, 1935, box 1.2, ECKERT. Strictly speaking, Comrie was using cards produced by the British Tabulating Machine Company, a firm that had IBM investment and had licensed IBM technology.
69. Eckert, “Astronomy” (1935); Comrie, L. J., “The Application of the Hollerith Tabulating Machine.”
70. Eckert, “Astronomy.”
71. Wallace J. Eckert to G. W. Baehne, January 9, 1934, box 1.2, ECKERT.
72. Baehne, Practical Applications of the Punched Card Method, preface.
73. Eckert, “Astronomy.”
74. Brennan, The IBM Watson Laboratory, p. 9.
75. Grier, “The First Breach of Computer Security?” (2001). Numerov’s death is described in P. G. Kulikousky, “Boris Numerov,” Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Charles Gillespie, New York, Scribners, 1974, pp. 158–60.
76. Eckert, Punched Card Methods (1940), p. 1.
77. Report on Annual Meeting of Board of Managers of Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau, April 27, 1940, ECKERT.
78. Henry Reitz to F. K. Richtmyer, February 19, 1934, Correspondence 1934–36, NRC-MTAC.
79. H. L. Reitz to F. K. Richtmyer, March 23, 1934, Correspondence 1934–36, NRC-MTAC.
80. U.S. Army, Ballisticians in War and Peace, p. 11; Aberdeen Proving Ground, Annual Reports for 1933–37.
81. U.S. Army, Ballisticians in War and Peace, p. 11.
82. R. A. Millikan to H. T. Davis, June 24, 1936, Correspondence 1934–36, NRC-MTAC.
83. L. J. Comrie to Robert Millikan, July 28, 1936, Correspondence 1937–39, NRC-MTAC.
84. A. A. Bennett to Henry Barton, October 10, 1936, Correspondence 1937–39, NRC-MTAC.
85. Croarken, “Case 5,656” (1999); see also Wilkins, “The History of H.M. Nautical Almanac Office,” p. 59.
86. Croarken, “Case 5,656” (1999).
87. Ibid.
88. Comrie, “Scientific Computing Service Limited,” pp. 1–3.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SCIENTIFIC RELIEF
1. Polk’s Washington (District of Columbia) City Directory, Richmond, Va., R. L. Polk, 1936; “Malcolm Morrow.”
2. When organized in 1935, the agency was originally called the Works Progress Administration. The Emergency Relief Act of 1939 changed its name to Work Projects Administration. To avoid confusion, this book will use the latter name throughout.
3. Bancroft, “Statistical Laboratory of the Iowa State University” (1966); Dedicatory Plaque, George Snedecor Hall, Iowa State University.
4. U.S. Federal Works Agency, Final Report, p. 65.
5. Works Progress Administration, Index, projects 3895, 3896, p. 13.
6. Ibid., p. iv.
7. Ibid., project 4273, p. 60.
8. “WPA Will Add 350,000 to Rolls.”
9. Office Memorandum No. 433, October 21, 1937, SAB.
10. Ibid.
11. Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, p. 250.
12. Paul Brockett to Frank Lillie, October 21, 1937, SAB.
13. Frank Lillie to Emerson Ross, October 29, 1937, SAB.
14. Office Memorandum No. 433, October 21, 1937, SAB.
15. Ibid.
16. Ickes, Secret Diary of Harold Ickes, p. 233; Kessner, Fiorello H. La Guardia, p. 418.
17. Office Memorandum No. 433, October 21, 1937, SAB.
18. Paul Brockett to Frank Lillie, November 6, 1937, SAB.
19. Paul Brockett to Frank Lillie, November 1, 1937, SAB.
20. Summary of Meeting, January 28, 1938, BRIGGS.
21. Lyman Briggs to the Secretary of Commerce, November 7, 1934, BRIGGS.
22. Civil Works Administration Projects folder #680, box 46, NBS.
23. Cochrane, Measures for Progress (1966), p. 332.
24. Paul Brockett to Frank Lillie, November 16, 1937, SAB.
25. “Lowan Information Sheet,” LOWAN.
26. Snyder-Grenier, Brooklyn, p. 258.
27. Lowan WPA Employment Form, MTP WPA.
28. George Pegram to Oswald Veblen, June 13, 1933, LOWAN.
29. Arnold Lowan Biographical Record Form, LOWAN.
30. Ida Rhodes to Uta Merzbach, November 4, 1969, NMAH.
31. Gertrude Blanch, interview by Henry Thatcher in San Diego, March 17, 1989, STERN.
32. Howe, World of Our Fathers, p. 131.
33. Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service Certificate, March 16, 1966, STERN.
34. Gertrude Blanch, interview with Michael Stern, approximately 1989, STERN.
35. Blanch’s library included Bennett, Corporation Accounting, New York, Ronald Press, 1919; Rosenthal, Technical Procedure in Exporting and Importing, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1922; and Mills, Statistical Methods, New York, Holt, 1924 (card file of book collection, STERN).
36. Transcript of Gittel Kaimowitz, BLANCH NYU.
37. Rossiter, Women Scientists in America, p. 173.
38. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology, p. 70.
39. Director FBI to Assistant Attorney General, May 17, 1956, BLANCH FBI.
40. Order of King’s County Court for Gittel Kaimowitz, February 9, 1932, STERN.
41. Gertrude Blanch, interview with Michael Stern, approximately 1989, STERN.
42. Gertrude Blanch, interview by Henry Thatcher in San Diego, March 17, 1989, STERN.
43. Ibid.
44. Blanch, Properties of the Veneroni Transformation (1934), p. i.
45. Records of the Alpha Chapter of Sigma Delta Epsilon, 1930–40, CORNELL.
46. Blanch, Properties of the Veneroni Transformation (1934), p. i.
47. “Field Mathematician Gets Top Job Rating.”
48. Hazel Ellenwood to Gertrude Blanch, February 26, 1937, CORNELL.
49. Gertrude Blanch, interview with Michael Stern, approximately 1989, STERN.
50. Gertrude Blanch, interview by Henry Thatcher in San Diego, March 17, 1989, STERN.
51. Gertrude Blanch, interview with Michael Stern, approximately 1989, STERN.
52. Gertrude Blanch, interview by Henry Thatcher in San Diego, March 17, 1989, STERN.
53. Gertrude Blanch, interview by Henry Tropp, May 16, 1973, SMITHSONIAN.
54. Barlow, Barlow’s Tables.
55. Mathematical Tables Project, Tables of the Exponential Function (1939).
56. Ibid., pp. 50–51.
57. Report of Meeting, January 28, 1938, BRIGGS.
58. Minutes of the Executive Committee of the Division of Physical Sciences, April 1, 1938, NAS.
59. U.S. Federal Works Agency, Final Report, p. 41.
60. Gertrude Blanch, interview with Henry Tropp, May 16, 1973, SMITHSONIAN.
61. Gertrude Blanch, interview by Henry Thatcher in San Diego, March 17, 1989, STERN.
62. Ida Rhodes to Uta Merzbach, November 4, 1969, NMAH.
63. Grier, “The Math Tables Project” (1998).
64. Slutz, “Memories of the Bureau of Standards SEAC.”
65. Abraham Hillman, interview with the author, February 1996.
66. David Stern, interview with the author, January 2002.
67. Abraham Hillman, interview with the author, February 1996.
68. Gertrude Blanch, interview with Michael Stern, approximately 1989, STERN.
69. Gertrude Blanch, interview with Henry Tropp, May 16, 1973, SMITHSONIAN.
70. Weekly Report of the Mathematical Tables Project for September 15, 1941, MTP WPA.
71. Fletcher et al., An Index of Mathematical Tables, p. 881.
72. Blanch and Rhodes, “Table-Making at the National Bureau of Standards.”
73. The procedure for reauthorizing is described in Office Memorandum No. 433, October 21, 1937, SAB.
74. The most complete series of this correspondence is found in Lowan Correspondence, 1940, box 13, Records Relating to Computing, NBS.
75. Lyman Briggs to Arnold Lowan, June 28, 1939, BRIGGS.
76. Arnold Lowan to Lyman Briggs, June 28, 1939, and Lyman Briggs to Arnold Lowan, July 27, 1939, BRIGGS.
77. John von Neumann to Arnold Lowan, September 19, 1940, NEUMANN.
78. Phil Morse to Arnold Lowan, September 21, 1938, W.P.A. Math Table Files, MORSE.
79. Arnold Lowan to Phil Morse, September 28, 1938, W.P.A. Math Table Files, MORSE.
80. Phil Morse to Arnold Lowan, October 18, 1938, W.P.A. Math Table Files, MORSE.
81. Howard, The WPA and Federal Relief Policy, p. 278.
82. Bethe and Critchfield, “The Formation of Deuterons by Proton Combination”; Bethe, “Energy Production in Stars.”
83. Blanch et al., “The Internal Temperature Density Distribution of the Sun” (1942).
84. Hans Bethe to Arnold Lowan, February 14, 1939, MTP AMP.
85. Hans Bethe quoted in Bernstein, “Profiles (Hans Bethe Part I).”
86. Hans Bethe to Arnold Lowan, January 17, 1940, Bethe File, Records Relating to Computing, NBS.
87. Curtiss, “Tables of the First Ten Powers of the Integers from 1 to 1000; Tables of the Exponential Function ex” (1941).
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
1. Lowan’s letters regularly mention his search for calculators. See, for example, Lyman Briggs to Arnold Lowan, November 25, 1940, BRIGGS.
2. Ida Rhodes to Uta Merzbach, NMAH.
3. Interview of Gertrude Blanch with Henry Tropp, May 16, 1973, SMITHSONIAN.
4. Bulletin of Iowa State College for 1934–35, p. 326.
5. American Men of Science, 11th ed., New York, Bowker, 1965.
6. Stibitz, “Computer” (1940).
7. Kruger, “A Slide Rule for Vector Calculations.”
8. Millman, A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System, pp. 27–28; Fry, “Industrial Mathematics” (1941).
9. Stibitz, “Early Computers” (1980).
10. Notes of January 19, 1938, Research Case 20878, Reel FC-4618, ATT.
11. Stibitz, “Computer.”
12. Andrews, E. C., “Telephone Switching and the Early Bell Laboratories Computers” (1982).
13. Stibitz, “Early Computers.”
14. Irvine, “Early Digital Computers at Bell Telephone Laboratories.”
15. See Iowa State College Budget for 1937–38, ISU-ADMIN; “Statement on Statistics,” Statistics 1945 File, Records of the Vice p. resident for Research, ISU-ADMIN.
16. “Interview with Mary Clem by Uta Merzbach,” June 27, 1969, p. 14, SMITHSONIAN.
17. Atanasoff, “Computing Machine for the Solution of Large Systems of Linear Algebraic Equations” (1984), p. 233.
18. The complexity increases with the cube of the size of the problem. Doubling the size of a problem increases the effort by a factor of 8 = 23. Increasing a problem by a factor of 12 (from 2 to 24) demands 1738 = 123 times the effort.
19. Atanasoff and Brandt, “Application of p. unched Card Equipment to the Analysis of Complex Spectra.”
20. Atanasoff, “Advent of Electronic Digital Computing” (1984).
21. Grier, “Agricultural Computing and the Context for John Atanasoff” (2000); Iowa State College Budget for 1938–39, ISU-ADMIN.
22. Testimony of John V. Atanasoff, ENIAC Trial, vol. 11, CBI, quoted in Atanasoff, “Advent of Electronic Digital Computing,” p. 239.
23. Atanasoff, “Advent of Electronic Digital Computing.”
24. John Atanasoff to John Mauchly, May 31, 1941, Trial Record, Honeywell v. Illinois Scientific, CBI.
25. Atanasoff, “Computing Machine for the Solution of Large Systems of Linear Algebraic Equations.”
26. J. V. Atanasoff to Warren Weaver, July 10, 1940, Feb. 26 folder 1, 13/20/51, ATANASOFF.
27. Deposition of Warren Weaver, Honeywell v. Illinois Scientific, Henry Hansen Papers, box 5, file 2, 3/6/72, ISU-ADMIN.
28. Diary of Warren Weaver, April 29, 1940, WEAVER.
29. J. V. Atanasoff to Warren Weaver, July 10, 1940, Feb. 26 folder 1, 13/20/51, ATANASOFF.
30. Mollenhoff, Atanasoff, Forgotten Father of the Computer, p. 52.
31. Atanasoff, “Computing Machine for the Solution of Linear Algebraic Equations,” p. 233. Experience with a modern reconstruction has confirmed the challenges with the card punch and has also suggested that the machine could be a delicate device; see Grier, “Henry Wallace and the Start of Statistical Computing” (1999).
32. Stewart, R., “End of the ABC.”
33. Mollenhoff, Atanasoff, Forgotten Father of the Computer, p. 10.
34. Herman Goldstine quoted in Stern, From ENIAC to UNIVAC, p. 34. The controversy has an extensive literature that includes Stern, From ENIAC to UNIVAC; Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann; the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 6, no. 3; Burks and Burks, The First Electronic Computer; Burks, Who Invented the Computer?; McCartney, ENIAC.
35. Aiken, “Proposed Automatic Calculating Machine.”
36. Aiken and Hopper, “The Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator—I” (1946).
37. Aiken and Hopper, “The Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator—III” (1946).
38. Cohen, Howard Aiken (1999), p. 63.
39. Ibid., pp. 12–13, 22.
40. Ibid., p. 42.
41. Kidwell, “From Novelty to Necessity” (1990); H. Shapley to L. J. Comrie, February 23, 1923, UA630.22 box 4, HARVARD OBS.
42. Aiken, “Proposed Automatic Calculating Machine.”
43. Cohen, Howard Aiken, pp. 24, 85.
44. Quoted in Ceruzzi, Reckoners (1983), p. xi.
45. Bloch, “Programming Mark I,” p. 82.
46. See Harvard University, Annals of the Computation Laboratory; Mathematical Tables Project, Tables.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
PROFESSIONAL AMBITION
1. Wells, H. G., “The World of Tomorrow,” New York Times, May 5, 1939, p. AS4.
2. “I.B.M. Convention Set,” New York Times, April 29, 1939, p. 34.
3. “Debris Still Fills Pavilion of WPA,” New York Times, May 4, 1939, p. 20.
4. “WPA Finds Friends at Its Fair Exhibit,” New York Times, July 6, 1939, p. 18.
5. “WPA Exhibit Opens without Fanfare,” New York Times, May 23, 1939, p. 18.
6. Lowan makes no mention of the fair in his correspondence, perhaps because he had little to show. See correspondence for 1939, MTP WPA.
7. A. A. Bennett quoted in Executive Committee Minutes, April 7, 1939, NRC-PS.
8. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Annual Report for 1936, ORDNANCE.
9. Bliss, Mathematics for Exterior Ballistics, p. 55.
10. R. C. Archibald to Simon Newcomb, July 2, 1902, NEWCOMB.
11. Resume, Raymond Claire Archibald, Archibald Correspondence, Electronic Computers, 1939–54, NBS.
12. Oswald Veblen to R. C. Archibald, January 12, 1928, VEBLEN.
13. R. C. Archibald to MTAC Committee, June 28, 1939, Correspondence, 1940, NBS-MTAC.
14. Albert Barrows to Luther p. Eisenhart, September 16, 1939, Correspondence, 1940, NRC-MTAC.
15. Albert Barrows to Luther p. Eisenhart, July 11, 1940, NRC-MTAC.
16. Archibald to Barrows, October 2, 1939, MTAC Correspondence, 1937–39, NRC-MTAC.
17. Archibald to Y. Tsuyi, National Research Council of Japan, Correspondence, 1940, NRC-MTAC.
18. W. J. Eckert to R. C. Archibald, August 16, 1940, ECKERT.
19. MTAC Membership List, 1940, MTAC Folder, ECKERT.
20. R. C. Archibald to Warren Weaver, Rockefeller Foundation, October 23, 1939, Correspondence, 1940, NRC-MTAC.
21. Lehmer, Guide to Tables in the Theory of Numbers.
22. L. P. Eisenhart to R. C. Archibald, July 20, 1940, Correspondence for 1940, NRC-MTAC.
23. Archibald to Eisenhart, July 16, 1940, Correspondence for 1940, NRC-MTAC.
24. Churchill Eisenhart, interview by William Aspray; Office Memorandum No. 433, 21 October, 1937, SAB.
25. L. P. Eisenhart to A. Barrows, July 20, 1940, NRC-MTAC.
26. R. C. Archibald to L. P. Eisenhart, July 29, 1940, NRC-MTAC.
27. R. C. Archibald to L. P. Eisenhart, August 1, 1940, NRC-MTAC.
28. See Correspondence for 1940, NRC-MTAC. The letter from Eisenhart to Albert Barrows, October 16, 1940, best describes the situation and the issues from Eisenhart’s point of view.
29. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 2, chap. 5.
30. Gallup, “American Institute of Public Opinion Surveys” (1939), p. 599.
31. Quoted in Burns, The Lion and the Fox, p. 393.
32. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Annual Report for 1939, ORDNANCE.
33. Dick, “A History of the American Nautical Almanac Office,” pp. 11–54.
34. L. J. Comrie to W. J. Eckert, January 25, 1940, ECKERT.
35. Weber, The Naval Observatory, pp. 42–43.
36. U.S. Naval Observatory, Annual Report for 1944, p. 2.
37. Capt. J. F. Hellweg, Superintendent, Naval Observatory, to Wallace Eckert, December 6, 1939, ECKERT; see Gutzwiller, “Wallace Eckert,” pp. 150–51.
38. U.S. Naval Observatory, Annual Report for 1941, pp. 10, 11, 13.
39. “Final Report of the Math Tables Project,” March 15, 1943, MTP WPA.
40. Lowan, “The Computational Laboratory at the National Bureau of Standards” (1949).
41. Baxter, Scientists against Time, p. 7.
42. Report of Arnold Lowan, June 13, 1941, MTP WPA.
43. Allegra Rogers to Arnold Lowan, June 9, 1941, MTP WPA.
44. He was discovering new groups as late as 1942; see Weekly Report of May 25, 1942, MTP WPA.
45. Lyman Briggs to Col. Loper, June 14, 1941, MTP WPA.
46. U.S. Federal Works Agency, Final Report, p. 79.
47. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, March 18, 1941, MORSE.
48. U.S. Federal Works Agency, Final Report, pp. 84, 85.
49. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, December 17, 1940, MORSE.
50. Ibid.
51. Arnold Lowan to John von Neumann, May 17, 1941, NEUMANN.
52. Plans were reviewed by an outside reviewer, the WPA office of New York, sponsor Lyman Briggs, the Washington WPA office, and the Central Statistical Office. This last group coordinated government statistical work and once had counted Howard Tolley of the Department of Agriculture among its members; see A. Lowan to p. Morse, October 19, 1938, MORSE.
53. Night Letter, August 29, 1940, BRIGGS.
54. R. C. Archibald to the Gentlemen of the Committee, December 31, 1941, NRC-MTAC.
55. Wallace Eckert to R. C. Archibald, January 7, 1942, ECKERT.
56. Lindbergh, The War Within and Without, pp. 241, 243.
57. Philip Morse to Arnold Lowan, January 19, 1942, MORSE.
58. Philip Morse to Arnold Lowan, January 12, 1942, and May 13, 1942, MORSE.
59. Memo of Karl Compton, January 29, 1942, MORSE.
60. Julius Stratton to Lyman Briggs, March 9, 1942, MORSE.
61. Florence Kerr to Lyman Briggs, April 8, 1942, MTP WPA.
62. Florence Kerr to R. C. Branion, May 19, 1942, MTP WPA; see also Lyman Briggs to General Huie, May 3, 1942, MTP WPA.
63. Florence Kerr to Lyman Briggs, April 8, 1942, MTP WPA.
64. Frank Culley to General Huie, July 1, 1942, MTP WPA.
65. Report from Cincinnati office of FBI, September 20, 1955, BLANCH FBI; Philip Morse to Lyman Briggs, May 30, 1943, MORSE.
66. “Summary of Supplemental Investigation,” April 23, 1956, BLANCH FBI.
67. Grier, “The First Breach of Computer Security” (2001); see Stepanoff to Eckert, August 8, 1940, Eckert to Stepanoff, August 8, 1940, and Schilt to Eckert, August 9, 1940, ECKERT. For background on Amtorg, see Rhodes, R., Dark Sun (1995), pp. 57ff.
68. Phil Morse to Fewell of National Bureau of Standards, June 25, 1942, MORSE.
69. Pierce, Long Range Navigation (1948), p. 403.
70. Melville Eastman to Julius Furer, July 2, 1942, MTP ONR.
71. Ibid.
72. Lyman Briggs to General Huie, September 7, 1942, MTP WPA.
73. General Huie to Lyman Briggs, September 15, 1942, MTP WPA.
74. Philip Morse to Arnold Lowan, October 2, 1942, MORSE.
75. Internal Memo, “Simplified Outline of LORAN System Components,” October 8, 1942, MTP ONR.
76. Fletcher Watson (MIT) to Warren Weaver (AMP), November 23, 1942, MORSE.
77. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, November 2, 1942, MORSE.
78. Ida Rhodes to Uta Merzbach, November 4, 1969, NMAH; a similar quote is given in Ida Rhodes, interview with Henry Tropp, March 21, 1973, SMITHSONIAN.
79. L. J. Comrie to Arnold Lowan, December 7, 1942 (copy), MORSE.
80. L. J. Comrie to Arnold Lowan, May 16, 1942, MTP WPA.
81. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, December 31, 1941, MORSE.
82. G. S. Bryan to New York City WPA Office, January 6, 1943, MTP WPA.
83. To the Commandant, 3rd Naval District, February 16, 1943, MTP ONR.
84. Regina Schlachter to Commandant, 3rd Naval District, February 15, 1944, MTP ONR.
85. NDRC Organizational Chart, August 1943, AMP.
86. Weaver, Scene of Change, p. 87.
87. Warren Weaver to Jerzy Neyman, October 21, 1941, NEYMAN.
88. Ibid.
89. See Minutes of Executive Committee, Applied Mathematics Panel, AMP.
90. Warren Weaver, “Report on the Proposed Applied Mathematics Panel,” November 12, 1942, AMP.
91. Owens, “Mathematicians at War” (1996).
92. Diary of Warren Weaver, December 10, 1942, AMP.
93. Warren Weaver to James Conant, February 8, 1942, AMP.
94. Warren Weaver to Grace Hopper, February 16, 1942, AMP.
95. Hopper, “Commander Aiken and My Favorite Computer,” pp. 185–94.
96. Warren Weaver to Lyman Briggs, February 23, 1942, AMP.
97. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, March 3, 1943, MORSE.
98. Lowan, “The Computational Laboratory at the National Bureau of Standards,” p. 37.
99. Ida Rhodes to Uta Merzbach, November 4, 1969, NMAH.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE MIDTOWN NEW YORK GLIDE BOMB CLUB
1. Beauclair, “Alwin Walther, IPM, and the Development of Calkulator/Computer Technology in Germany, 1930–l945.”
2. Herbert Salzer, interview with the author.
3. Croarken, Early Scientific Computing in Britain, pp. 61–74.
4. Ceruzzi, “When Computers Were Human” (1991).
5. G. S. Bryan to New York City WPA Office, January 6, 1943, MTP WPA; E. C. Crittenden, Acting Director, ONR, to Lowan, October 23, 1943, MTP ONR; Warren Weaver to Applied Mathematics Panel, November 12, 1943, MTP AMP.
6. R. C. Archibald to MTAC Committee, August 6, 1942, ECKERT.
7. L. Eisenhart to A. Barrows, August 7, 1942; A. Barrows to L. Eisenhart, August 10, 1942, NRC-MTAC.
8. After his initial reaction, Weaver said that he would do nothing to stop the plan. W. Weaver to L. Eisenhart, August 14, 1942, NRC-MTAC.
9. W. Eckert to R. C. Archibald, October 28, 1942, ECKERT.
10. R. C. Archibald to MTAC Committee, August 6, 1942, ECKERT.
11. Archibald, “Introduction” (1943).
12. J. Brainerd to L. Briggs, February 9, 1943, Directors Correspondence, Records of the Director, UD E-6, NBS.
13. Memo from Arnold Lowan to Mathematical Tables Project Staff, October 16, 1946, Monte Carlo Computations File (verso used as scratch paper), Research on Electronic Computers, 1939–54, NBS.
14. Brainerd to J. A. Shohat, February 23, 1943, Course on Mathematical Ballistics, PENNSYLVANIA.
15. U.S. Army, Ballisticians in War and Peace, p. 11; Irven Travis, Oral History, pp. 2–3.
16. R. S. Zug to Major Gillon, “Report on work at Moore School, University of Pennsylvania, July 1–10, 1942,” July 14, 1942, Course on Mathematical Ballistics, PENNSYLVANIA.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. S. Reid Warren to J. Brainerd, January 9, 1945, Office of the Vice Dean, Correspondence for 1945, PENNSYLVANIA.
20. Herman Goldstine, interview with the author, July 2002; Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann, p. 133.
21. Herman Goldstine, interview with the author, July 2002.
22. Minutes of Moore School Meeting of December 18, 1944, Course on Mathematical Ballistics, PENNSYLVANIA; Report (unsigned), July 27, 1942, Office of the Vice Dean, Correspondence for 1943, PENNSYLVANIA; Program for Selection and Processing of Applicants, July 17, 1942, Office of the Vice Dean, Correspondence for 1942, PENNSYLVANIA.
23. Dean Pender to George Turner, September 21, 1942, Office of the Vice Dean, Correspondence for 1943, PENNSYLVANIA.
24. W. Weaver to Applied Mathematics Panel, November 12, 1943, MTP AMP.
25. Report (unsigned), July 27, 1942, Office of the Vice Dean, Correspondence for 1943, PENNSYLVANIA.
26. See, for example, letters of July 10, 15; November 9, 14, 18, 1942; January 22, 23, 24, 28; March 27, 1943, Moore School of Electrical Engineering, Office of the Vice Dean, Records 1931–1948, UPD 8.1, PENNSYLVANIA.
27. Minutes of Moore School Meeting of December 18, 1944, Course on Mathematical Ballistics, PENNSYLVANIA.
28. Adele Goldstine to J. G. Brainerd, May 27, 1943, Office of the Vice Dean, Correspondence for 1943, PENNSYLVANIA.
29. Comrie, L. J., “Computing Machines,” Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation, vol. 1, no. 2 (April 1943), pp. 63–64; Shannon, C. E., “Mathematical Theory of the Differential Analyzer,” Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation, vol. 1, no. 2 (April 1943), p. 64.
30. Goldstine, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann, p. 149.
31. Croarken, Early Scientific Computing in Britain, pp. 62, 64.
32. “The Missions of a Convert,” undated manuscript, TODD.
33. John Todd, Interview, p. 9, SMITHSONIAN.
34. Ibid.; John Todd, interview with the author.
35. Taussky, “How I Became a Torchbearer for Matrix Theory.”
36. Croarken, Early Scientific Computing in Britain (1990), p. 68; a similar statement was made by Todd in an interview with the author, January 2002.
37. John Todd, interview with the author.
38. Sadler and Todd, “Mathematics in Government Service and Industry” (1946).
39. Frank Olver, interview with the author, March 2002.
40. Olga Taussky-Todd to Frances Cave-Browne-Cave, August 29, 1947, CBC.
41. John Todd, interview with the author.
42. Todd, “John von Neumann and the National Accounting Machine” (1974).
43. John von Neumann to John Todd, November 17, 1947, quoted ibid.; see also Aspray, John von Neumann (1990), pp. 27–28.
44. For much of the war, the office of the Applied Mathematics Panel was in the Empire State Building, but all committee meetings were held at Rockefeller Center.
45. Minutes of Executive Committee, December 13, 1943, AMP.
46. Minutes of Executive Committee, May 24, 1943, AMP.
47. Minutes of Executive Committee, April 26, 1943, AMP.
48. Diary of J. D. Williams, February 9, 1944, AMP.
49. Minutes of Executive Committee, February 7, 1944, AMP.
50. Minutes of Executive Committee, November 22, 1943, AMP.
51. See, for example, the discussion of the Coast Artillery for a specialized theory of ballistics, Minutes of Executive Committee, September 20, 1943, AMP.
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, June 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.
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.
61. See Grier, “The Rise and Fall of the Committee on Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation” (2001).
62. “Clara Froelich,” The Reporter.
63. Gertrude Blanch, interview with Michael Stern, approximately 1989, STERN.
64. SAC Cincinnati to Director, FBI, August 30, 1955, BLANCH FBI.
65. Director, FBI, to SAC Cincinnati, September 20, 1955, BLANCH FBI.
66. Gertrude Blanch, interview with Michael Stern, approximately 1989, STERN.
67. “Report on Mathematical Tables,” 1952, Mathematical Tables Committee File, MORSE.
68. Morse, In at the Beginning, p. 282.
69. Blanch to Morse, January 4, 1954, MORSE.
70. Arnold Lowan to Philip Morse, September 1, 1954; Philip Morse to Arnold Lowan, September 7, 1954, MORSE.
71. Philip Morse, Manuscript Report on Conference on Mathematical Tables, September 15–16, 1954, MORSE.
72. Ibid.
73. Jahnke and Emde, Tables of Functions.
74. Fletcher et al., An Index of Mathematical Tables, pp. 863–64.
75. National Bureau of Standards, Projects and Publications of the National Applied Mathematics Laboratories, July–December 1947, Project 47D2-4, p. 9.
76. “Clara Froelich,” The Reporter; Nancy Persily, interview with the author, June 4, 1998; Murray Pfefferman to John von Neumann, March 5, 1952, NEUMANN; Farebrother, A Memoir on the Life of Harold Thayer Davis; Croarken, Early Scientific Computing in Britain (1990), p. 23.
77. Abramowitz and Stegun, Handbook of Mathematical Functions, p. vi; “Dr. Abramowitz, Standards Unit Mathematician,” Washington Evening Star; Wrench, “Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs and Mathematical Tables.”
78. Quoted in Pugh, Building IBM, p. 275.
79. Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing, p. 145.
80. The book is uncopyrighted and has been reprinted in many forms and many languages. The two most popular editions are distributed by Dover Press and by the U.S. Government Printing Office. Between these two editions, the book has sold about 1.2 million copies.
81. Gertrude Blanch, interview by Henry Thatcher in San Diego, March 17, 1989, STERN.
82. Eisenman, History of Mathematical Statistics Research, p. 6; Sterling, “Blond Fashion Designer”; “Biography for Gertrude Blanch, Federal Woman’s Award,” LBJ.
83. McLendon, “She Corrects Computers.”
84. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, NARA, Papers of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 1, 1963, p. 330.
85. Federal Woman’s Award.
EPILOGUE:
FINAL PASSAGE
1. Yeomans, “Comet Halley—The Orbital Motion” (1977).
2. Donald Yeomans, personal communication with the author, July 2002.
3. Stern, From ENIAC to UNIVAC, p. 149.
4. Donald Yeomans, personal communication with the author.
5. Yeomans, “Comet Halley—The Orbital Motion”; Hughes, D. W., “The History of Halley’s Comet.”
6. Hughes, D. W., “The History of Halley’s Comet.”
7. Donald Yeomans, personal communication with the author.
8. MacRobert, “Halley in the Distance.”