Computer science/Catalogs/Breakthroughs

This is a list of people who have made major conceptual breakthroughs in computer science that we need to mention somehow in the history of computing article (which is currently organized as a timeline not amenable to inclusion of people per se). If unlinked, these are placeholders until an article can be written. The summary should describe briefly the most famous thing the person did.

This list should not include people just because they invented a new computer, operating system, or type of software, unless they devised an innovation which was so compelling that it was adopted by everyone later because it was such a good idea (and you can identify what that innovation was, and document it). Let's keep this for the really great ones for now.

This article might be renamed, moved or removed later once we figure out how to structure more of the CZ:Computers Workgroup articles.

Please also alphabetize by last name. Pat Palmer 16:06, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

• Backus, John (1924-2007) - inventor of FORTRAN
• Babbage, Charles (1791-1871) - early theorist for how a computing machine could be programmed
• Boole, George (1815-1864) - inventor of Boolean algebra
• Bricklin, Dan - invention of the first spreadsheet
• Church, Alonzo (1903-1995) - proof that first-order logic is undecidable; Church's thesis; creation of the lambda calculus
• Deutsch, David - pioneer of quantum computing
• Jay Forrester (1918 -) - invention of core memory in 1953 (while working on the Whirlwind computer)
• Fourier, Joseph (1768-1830) - invented of Fourier series (long before electronic computers), making possible imaging algorithms for radar, xrays, etc
• Hamming, Richard (1915-1998) - invention of Hamming code for error correction
• Hopper, Grace (1906-1992) - invention of the compiler
• Knuth, Donald - created an encyclopedia of algorithms; pioneer in analysis of algorithms
• Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) - wrote first computer program (instructions for calculating Bernoulli numbers on a Babbage machine)
• Ritchie, Dennis (1941- ) - Created C programming language, co-developer of Unix.
• Shannon, Claude (1916-2001) - association of boolean algebra with digital design; pioneering work in information theory
• Torvalds, Linus (1969-) - implemented Linux kernel, first monolithic, UNIX-like operating system which could run on an IBM compatible PC
• Tukey, John (1915-2000) - introduction of the word "bit" as a contraction of binary digit and the word "software" in a computing context
• Turing, Alan (1912-1954) - theory of computability
• von Neumann, John (1903-1957) - first publication proposing use of same memory space for program instructions and data (idea now recognized as not created by JVN), merge sort algorithm, cellular automata
• Weiner, Norbert (1894 - 1964) Cybernetics.
• Zuse, Konrad (1910-1995) - likely invented the first electronic computer; likely the first designer to propose pipelining] in processors