03/27/2017
Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992) was a mathematician, pioneering computer scientist, U.S. Navy rear admiral, and posthumous recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 for her contributions to computer science. Grace put her many accomplishments and awards in perspective:
“The most important thing I’ve accomplished, other than building the compiler, is training young people. They come to me, you know, and say, ‘Do you think we can do this?’ I say, ‘Try it.’ And I back ’em up. They need that. I keep track of them as they get older, and I stir ’em up at intervals so they don’t forget to take chances.”
When Grace was seven years old, she dismantled seven clocks to learn how they work. Later Grace said: “Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, ‘We’ve always done it this way.’ I try to fight that. That’s why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.”
After graduating from Vassar College in math and physics, she earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. at Yale in the 1930s. During World War II, Grace joined the Naval Reserve. The Navy assigned her to its computation project at Harvard, where she helped program the very first computer, named Mark I.
Later Grace worked on the team that developed the UNIVAC I computer. Her team created the first compiler for computer languages (a compiler translates worded instructions into code that computers can read); this compiler was a forerunner of COBOL computer language.
Grace continued in the Naval Reserve and then active duty, for a total of 42 years, achieving the ranks of captain, commodore, and rear admiral. When she retired in 1986 at age 79, she was the oldest active-duty commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy.
“Amazing Grace” Hopper summed up her adventurous attitude about life, risk-taking, and service: “A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.”
