Grace Murray Hopper:The Spark for the Information Explosion

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Many people today complain about how slow their computer is. They claim it takes forever to boot up, has slow internet, and can’t run the latest game. But, can you imagine if you didn’t have a computer at all? Nowadays, computers have revolutionized almost everything: mail, news, business, marketing, schools, and even gaming. They are trusted with humanly-impossible tasks and are many people’s main gateway to the real world. Have you ever given thought to who is to thank for all of this? Was it Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs? No, and no. It was actually Navy Rear Admiral, and overall genius, Grace Murray Hopper-also nicknamed “Amazing Grace”. Born December 9, 1906, she was the eldest of three children, and was filled with curiosity from a young age. At age 7, she wanted to know how an alarm clock worked. So, she dismantled one, and, unable to reassemble it, did the same to 6 others. She attended Vassar College at the age of 17 (she attempted to join at 16). Then, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hopper was struck with an urge to serve her country, and, after avoiding some requirement shortcomings, joined the Navy in December 1943. While working on the Mark 1, she found a moth dead on the circuitry, which was causing calculation problems, and invented the term “debugging” (Dickason). To me, a genius is someone who works hard at something and changes the world with what the worked on. I believe that Grace Hopper was a certifiable genius, because she worked hard at such a difficult task as programming the Harvard Mark 1 computer, developed the first computer-independent programming language, and with these changed the world overall by introducing the information age.
On July 2, 1944, Grace Hopper reported for work on the Harvard Mark 1...

... middle of paper ...

... something that old is still used today-and is still one of the most developed programming languages today (Taft)!

Works Cited

Beyer, Kurt. "Distributed Invention Matures: Grace Hopper and the Development of COBOL." Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2009. N. pag. Print.
Dickason, Elizabeth. "Grace Murray Hopper - The Younger Years of Grace Murray Hopper." Grace Murray Hopper - The Younger Years of Grace Murray Hopper. Norfolk Naval Center and Chips Magazine, 2013. Web. 13 Dec. 2013. .
Gorman, Robert F. "Grace Murray Hopper." Great Lives from History. Pasadena, CA: Salem, 2008. N. pag. Print.
Taft, Darryl K. "COBOL: 10 Reasons the Old Language Is Still Kicking." COBOL: 10 Reasons the Old Language Is Still Kicking. N.p., 24 June 2013. Web. 18 Dec. 2013.

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