Today In Computing

<

january

>
Picture of Grace Hopper

Grace Hopper died this month.

Died: January 1, 1992

Grace Brewster Hopper was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy Rear Admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of computer programming who invented one of the first linkers. Hopper's work on programming also led to the creation COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today.

Birthplace: New York, USA 🇺🇸

Picture of Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos was born this month!

Born: January 12, 1964

Jeffrey Preston Bezos is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon. The company was founded in 1993 as an online bookstore and has made Bezos one of the richest men on the planet.

Birthplace: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA 🇺🇸

Picture of Kurt Gödel

Kurt Gödel died this month.

Died: January 14, 1978

Kurt Gödel was an Austrian mathematician and logician who made significant contributions to mathematical logic and philosophy. He is best known for his incompleteness theorems, which showed that there are mathematical statements that cannot be proven or disproven within a given formal system.

Birthplace: Brno, Czech Republic 🇨🇿

Picture of Tom Kilburn

Tom Kilburn died this month.

Died: January 17, 2001

Tom Kilburn was an English mathematician and computer scientist. Over the course of a productive 30-year career, he was involved in the development of five computers of great historical significance. With Freddie Williams he worked on the Williams–Kilburn tube and the world's first electronic stored-program computer, the Manchester Baby, while working at the University of Manchester. His work propelled Manchester and Britain into the forefront of the emerging field of computer science.

Birthplace: Dewsbury, United Kingdom 🇬🇧

Picture of Paul Allen

Paul Allen was born this month!

Born: January 21, 1953

Paul Gardner Allen was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975.

Birthplace: Seatle, Washington, USA 🇺🇸

Picture of David Hilbert

David Hilbert was born this month!

Born: January 23, 1862

David Hilbert was a German mathematician, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1928 Hilbert, along with Wilhelm Ackermann, published the Entscheidungsproblem (Decision Problem) which asked whether all problems are calculable or computable. This question was answered separately be Alonso Church and Alan Turing in 1936. Both showed not all problems are calculable, in Turing's case this was achieved by defining the Turing Machine (computer) and the Halting Problem which showed no computer could calculate whether a program with a given input would halt or not.

Birthplace: Konigsberg, Germany 🇩🇪

Picture of Edvard Scheutz

Edvard Scheutz died this month.

Died: January 28, 1881

Edvard Georg Raphael Scheutz was a Swedish engineer and designer of calculating machines . Following the ideas of Charles Babbage , he and his father Georg Scheutz built the first functional difference machine that was actually used, was commercially available and was intended for the creation of mathematical tables with a connected printer.

Birthplace: Stockholm, Sweden 🇸🇪

Picture of Heinz Rutishauser

Heinz Rutishauser was born this month!

Born: January 30, 1918

Heinz Rutishauser was a Swiss mathematician and computer scientist who made numerous contributions to computing and software. He worked on the development of Switzerland's first computer ERMETH, developed Superplan one of the world's first programming languages and contributed to the development of ALGOL 58 and 60.

Birthplace: Weinfelden, Switzerland 🇨🇭

Picture of Victor Glushkov

Victor Glushkov died this month.

Died: January 30, 1982

Victor Mikhailovich Glushkov was a Soviet mathematician, the founding father of information technology in the Soviet Union and one of the founding fathers of Soviet cybernetics.

Birthplace: Rostov-on-Don, Russia 🇷🇺

Picture of Guido van Rossum

Guido van Rossum was born this month!

Born: January 31, 1956

Guido van Rossum is a Dutch programmer best known as the creator of the Python programming language, for which he was the "benevolent dictator for life" (BDFL) until he stepped down from the position on 12 July 2018.

Birthplace: The Hague, Netherlands 🇳🇱