Grace Hopper

Grace Brewster Hopper (née Murray; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. She was a pioneer of computer programming and is famous for creating the first theory of machine-independent programming languages. Using this idea, she developed the FLOW-MATIC programming language and helped create COBOL, an early high-level programming language that people still use today.

Before joining the Navy, Hopper earned a Ph.D. in both mathematics and mathematical physics from Yale University and taught mathematics at Vassar College. During World War II, she began her computing career in 1944 as part of the Harvard Mark I team led by Howard H. Aiken. Later, she joined the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation and helped develop the UNIVAC I computer. She believed programming should be simpler, using English-like words that computers could understand.

Hopper’s work led to the creation of compilers that turned English terms into computer instructions. By 1952, she had finished a program called a linker, originally named a compiler, for the A-0 System. She led the development of early compiled languages like FLOW-MATIC and helped create COBOL through the CODASYL group in 1959. Her ideas made programming much easier for many people.

Several important things were named after her, including a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer called the USS Hopper, a powerful Cray XE6 "Hopper" supercomputer, and the Nvidia GPU architecture "Hopper." She received many honors, including 40 honorary degrees, the National Medal of Technology in 1991, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 from President Barack Obama. In 2024, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers placed a plaque at the University of Pennsylvania to honor her invention of the A-0 compiler.

Early life and education

Grace Brewster Murray was born in New York City and was the eldest of three children. Her parents were of Scottish and Dutch descent. From a young age, Grace was very curious. At seven years old, she took apart seven alarm clocks to see how they worked. She later became known for having a clock that ran backward to remind people to embrace change.

Grace went to the Hartridge School in Plainfield, New Jersey for her preparatory education. She attended Vassar College, graduating in 1928 with a degree in mathematics and physics. She then earned a master's degree at Yale University in 1930. In 1934, she completed her Ph.D. in mathematics at Yale. She began teaching mathematics at Vassar in 1931 and became an associate professor in 1941.

Career

World War II

Grace Hopper tried to join the Navy during World War II, but she was too old and did not meet the weight requirements. In 1943, she joined the WAVES, a part of the Navy for women, and trained at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She worked on the Mark I computer at Harvard University and helped write important papers about it.

UNIVAC

In 1949, Hopper began working with the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation on the UNIVAC I, one of the first large electronic computers. She believed that computer programs should be written in simple English words instead of complicated symbols. Though many people disagreed at first, she kept working on this idea. She created an early program called a compiler that could translate English-like statements into the code computers understand.

COBOL

In 1959, Hopper helped create a new computer language called COBOL. This language used words that were easy for people to understand, like saying "Subtract income tax from pay" instead of using complex symbols. COBOL became very important for business computing and is still used today.

Standards

In the 1970s, Hopper supported using smaller computers connected in networks instead of big centralized systems. She also helped create standards to test computer systems and programming languages like FORTRAN and COBOL, making sure they worked correctly across different computers.

Retirement

Grace Hopper retired from the Naval Reserve at age 60 in 1966, but she kept coming back to help the Navy. She retired again in 1971 and then once more in 1972, but she was asked to keep working. In 1983, she was given a special promotion by President Ronald Reagan. She finally retired for good in 1986 after more than 42 years of service, becoming the oldest person ever to serve in the Navy. A special celebration was held on the USS Constitution to honor her amazing career.

Post-retirement

After leaving the Navy, Grace Hopper worked as a senior consultant for Digital Equipment Corporation. She started by going through a regular interview, even though someone had already offered her a job. Later, she was hired full-time as a Principal Corporate Consulting Engineer. In this role, she spoke at many events and served on different industry groups.

Hopper traveled to many of Digital Equipment’s engineering sites, where people often applauded her after her talks. Even though she was no longer in the Navy, she wore her full uniform to these events. In 2016, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her big contributions to computer science. She was proud of helping train young people, encouraging them to try new ideas and take chances.

Anecdotes

Grace Hopper was very popular as a speaker at computer events. She had a fun way of talking and liked to tell stories from her time in the Navy.

While she worked on a Mark II Computer at Harvard University in 1947, someone found a moth stuck in a relay that was stopping the computer from working well. They put the moth on a log sheet with the note, "First actual case of bug being found." This story helped make the word "bug" popular for talking about problems in computers. You can still see the moth in the log book at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

Hopper also had a clever way to explain why satellite messages took time to arrive. She would give out small pieces of wire, about one foot long, to show how far light travels in one nanosecond. These pieces of wire were called "nanoseconds." She also used a longer coil of wire to show what a microsecond was like. Later, she even used grains of pepper to show something even smaller called picoseconds.

Death

On New Year's Day in 1992, Grace Hopper passed away peacefully in her sleep at her home in Arlington County, Virginia. She was 85 years old. She was honored with a special military ceremony and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Dates of rank

Awards and honors

Military awards

Other awards

Grace Hopper received many important awards for her work. In 1964, she was given the top award from the Society of Women Engineers for her big ideas in computers. In 1971, an award for young computer experts was named after her. She was also honored by many universities with special degrees and by groups that recognize achievements in science and technology. In 1991, she got the National Medal of Technology for making computer programming easier for everyone. Even after she passed away, many things were named after her, like a ship in the U.S. Navy and a college at Yale University.

Legacy

Grace Hopper received many honors during her life, including 40 honorary degrees from universities around the world. Companies and organizations have celebrated her contributions in many ways. For example, Nvidia named their 2024 CPU generation Grace and GPU generation Hopper after her. The Navy has several places and things named after her, including a guided-missile destroyer called Hopper and a satellite named "Grace."

Many places are named in her honor, such as Grace Hopper Avenue in Monterey, California, and schools like Grace Murray Hopper Park in Arlington County, Virginia and Grace Hopper College at Yale University. There are also buildings, streets, and even a minor planet named after her.

Her inspiration also led to the creation of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, an annual conference that supports women in computing careers. Programs and scholarships in her name continue to encourage people, especially women, to pursue careers in technology and computer science.