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So you're into sci fi? But what about sci fact? Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction...

Each month our very own Voyager Science Queen* will bring you interesting, quirky and downright bizarre tasty morsels from the world of science. And its all completely, totally, 100% true!

July Sci-Facts

Science Page July 2008

Amazing Grace

"It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission"
attributed to Rear Admiral Grace Hopper

I haven’t done a scientist’s biography for a while.  I thought I should do a catch up biography for this month’s page.  So, as everyone who reads this site has to be interested in computers at some level, I picked someone who helped develop the structure of modern computers and the computer industry – Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, nicknamed the Amazing Grace.

The dry facts: Grace Brewster Murray was born in New York in 1906. She received a PhD in Mathematics in 1934, from Yale University.  She married Vincent Hopper in 1930, and they divorced in 1945.  She died on the 1st of January, 1992.

"I believe in having an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out."
Grace Murray was lucky enough to have parents who didn’t believe in restricting their children to traditional gender roles.  Her mother was a competent mathematician, who passed that love onto her daughter, and her father encouraged her love of adventurous sports.

In 1943, Grace Hopper was sworn into the United States Navy Reserve where she became the first programmer on the Navy's Mark I computer. She was released from active duty in 1946, and to continue her work with the Mark II and Mark III computers. She worked on developing COBOL (common-business-oriented-language).  Even though she was a mathematician, it was her idea to develop a computer language based on English rather than mathematical symbols or machine code.  Rear Admiral Hopper worked developing the UNIVAC I , which stands forUNIVersal Automatic Computer I.  This was the first commercial computer made in the United States, for use in industry rather than for military or scientific purposes.  She did work on the compilers.

She went on to help develop the standards for testing computer systems.  She has been accredited with popularising the words ‘computer bug’ ‘debugging’, when she removed a dead moth from a relay.
She received the first computer sciences "Man-of-the-Year" award from the Data Processing Management Association in 1969.  Ironic, isn’t it.

Rear Admiral Hopper wasn’t good at retirement; she had retired actice duty from the Navy after WWII but she was asked to return to active duty in August 1967. She was assigned to the Chief of Naval Operations' staff as Director, Navy Programming Languages Group.  She was the oldest serving officer in the US Navy at the time of her final – involuntary – retirement.  She worked as a consultant senior for the Digital Equipment Corporation until eighteen months before her death.  She remained active in education all her lifer, right up until the time of her death.

As you can see, the Amazing Grace had a full and interesting career.

 


*The Voyager Science Queen is also known as Lynne Green

So, who is this woman who attempts to entertain us with Science?

Well, I really am a scientist. I have a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Queensland, in Zoology. And, at the moment, I am working in a Pathology laboratory.

I have always been intensely curious about every aspect of our universe, from the teeny tiny workings of the gene right up to the mind-bending forces that are twisting and knotting inside a blackhole. So, now I am sharing a brain stuffed full of trivia...and hopefully entertaining people at the same time.

As well, I write Fantasy stories and novels. One day, I hope to have a book published, but don't hold your breath. Reading is my other major love, and my favourite authors are Terry Pratchett and Isaac Asimov, though I could list hundreds of others. If I had one wish, I ask for more time to write!

Read previous Sci-Facts:

Red Mars
Future Wars
Artificial Artefacts
More on Language Acquisition
Language Acquisition
Putting on the Squeeze
Hard Currency
Anti-Science

Colour My World

Lynne's Top Five Science Books
Animals at War
Busy Little Bees
Thinking Outside the Square

Water-Saving Tips
The Dark Side
Strange Objects
Updates: Bad New, Good News
Happy Holidays
Happy Birthday
Carnivorous Plants
What Makes Matter, Well Matter?
Putting the Science into Science Fiction
The Vortex
The Baddies on Your Bread
Scientific Updates on Previous Articles
Talking not Choking
Searching for the Lost Eden
A Comment on Comets

Mari Lwyd

The Pandemic
Zombie Insects and other oddities
You'll Be A Star!
Twisting the Light
Green by name, green by nature

A No Science Page...

The Art of Statistics...
Ice, Ice, Baby...
Oddities
Bang, crash...Thud!
The Concept of Time
Fact versus Fantasy
Sci-Facts review
Incy-Wincy Teeny-Weeny Itty-Bitty Small Things
Flavour versus Flavonoids
The Third Eye
X Marks the Spot
The Horseshoe Crab
Pathology
The Tenth Planet
Science News Updates
The Sweet Keen Smell
Indulgence
Hollywood Crimes
Natural Oddities
A Rainbow of Emotions
When is a star, not a star?
The Red Planet
Minerals
Hot Topic - Vitamins
A brief glimpse of New Technologies
Cuddly Australian Animals
Something light-hearted
Living in Interesting Times
New Hope for Our New Year
The Meaning of Life...
As the worm turns
Forensics
A Grab Bag of Facts
Bits and Bobs
Australian Achievements
Getting Your Attention
May Sci-Facts
After the Big Bang
The Big Bang
Ashes to ashes; Dust to dust
Twists in the tale
Robots in the Swim and other things
The Tachyon and other things

Looking for more scientific oddities? Have you checked out Dr Steven Juan's website? He is, quite literally, the wizard of odds!


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