Goldstein, Herman

Born September 13, 1913 in a Jewish family. In 1933 he graduated from the University of Chicago with a bachelor 's degree in mathematics. In 1934 he received a master 's degree , in 1936 - a doctorate . For 3 years he was a research fellow at Gilbert Ames Bliss , specializing in the mathematical theory of calculating ballistics .

In 1939-1942 he taught at the University of Michigan .

US Army Service

In July 1942, after the United States entered World War II , he entered the army . He served as a lieutenant in the Ballistic Research Laboratory ( Eng. ) At the Aberdeen Proving Ground ( Maryland ), where he was engaged in the calculation of shooting tables used in battle to determine altitude and azimuth when pointing artillery. The calculations were performed by about a hundred women using special mechanical calculators. Each combination of guns, projectile and charge required a separate set of shooting tables. To calculate one trajectory, about 750 calculations were performed, in each table there were about 3,000 trajectories. Calculation of one trajectory took about 12 days for one specialist (ironically they were called calculators - English ), and the calculation of the table took more than 4 years. To increase productivity, the laboratory leveraged the computing facilities of the Moore School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania , and Goldstein facilitated the interaction of the laboratory and the university.

ENIAC Project

In the spring of 1943, making some adjustments to the Moore Institute’s differential analyzer, engineer Joseph Chapline invited Goldstein to meet with John Mokley , a physics teacher at the Moore Institute, who in August 1942 proposed using an electronic computer with electronic tubes to speed up calculations. After talking with Goldstein, Mokley wrote a scientific and technical justification, and in June 1943 he and Goldstein received funding from the army for the project. After 30 months (200,000 man-hours), the ENIAC was built - this computer was 30 × 60 feet, weighed 30 tons, and consisted of 18,000 electronic tubes. A computer could store only 20 numbers and required several days for programming. It was created at the end of 1945, when World War II ended.

Prior to the completion of ENIAC, the U.S. Army entered into a second contract with the Moore Institute to create an EDVAC computer. Together with Mokley, John Eckert, and Arthur Burks Goldstein began developing a new computer in the hope of correcting ENIAC deficiencies.

In the summer of 1944, on a railway platform in Aberdeen, Goldstein accidentally met with mathematician John von Neumann , and Goldstein described his project at the University of Pennsylvania. Von Neumann at that time was working on a Manhattan project , which also required laborious calculations. Von Neumann joined the Goldstein group and wrote the “ First Draft EDVAC Report, ” intended for the research group. Goldstein printed the manuscript on page 101 and indicated von Neumann as the sole author of the document. On June 25, 1945, Goldstein sent out 24 copies of the document to the specialists involved in the EDVAC project; dozens, perhaps hundreds of copies of the report, were sent to von Neumann's colleagues at universities in the United States and England over the next week. Although the document was incomplete, it was very well received and became a computer project. Due to the central position of von Neumann as the chief mathematician of the project, the EDVAC architecture became known as “von Neumann architecture” .

In the spring of 1946, Mokley and Eckert left the Moore Institute to create a private computer company (now Unisys ); von Neumann, Goldstein and Burks went to work on the IAS machine at the Institute for Advanced Study . In August 1946, they teamed up to conduct the first computer course, which became known as the " Moore School Lectures "; Goldstein's presentations covered numerical mathematical methods useful in computer programs.

At Princeton

Since mid-1946, Goldstein worked with von Neumann and Burks at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton , where they commissioned the US Army to build a computer called the IAS machine ^[1] Goldstein was appointed assistant project director, and since 1954 - director. Through von Neumann, who was an IBM consultant, the IAS machine influenced the design of early IBM computers. After the death of von Neumann in 1957, the IAS computer project was closed. Goldstein became the founding director of the Mathematical Science Division at IBM's Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights , New York .

At IBM

One of Goldstein’s significant roles at IBM was the collaboration of IBM researchers and the academic community. In 1969, he was appointed IBM Member - the company's most prestigious technical title - and a consultant to the research director. Goldstein has developed an interest in the history of computing and the mathematical sciences. He wrote three books on this topic:

• The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann ;
• History of Numerical Analysis from the 16th Through the 19th Century
• History of the Calculus of Variations from the Seventeenth Through the Nineteenth Century .

From the name The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann, it follows that von Neumann, according to Goldstein, played a leading role in the development of modern theories of computing.

He was a full member of the US National Academy of Sciences , American Academy of Arts and Sciences , American Philosophical Society .

In 1985-1997, in retirement age, he was Executive Director of the Philosophical Society of Philosophy in America .

He died on June 16, 2004 at his home in Brin More ( Pennsylvania ) after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease .

Family

In 1941, he married Adele Katz ( German: Adele Katz ; d. 1964), who was an ENIAC programmer and wrote a technical guide for ENIAC .

• Children: daughter and son.

In 1966 he married Ellen Watson .

• Harry Hood Memorial Award (1979)
• US National Science Medal (1983) - for a fundamental contribution to computer development, programming, and numerical analysis ^[2]
• Army Artillery Hall of Fame (1997)
• Benjamin Franklin Medal ( American Philosophical Society ) For Outstanding Achievements in the Sciences (1997) ^[3]

• Oral history interview with Herman H. Goldstine - 1980 oral interview with Herman Goldstein on the website of the Charles Babbage Institute
• John Maulchi and John Eckert (Neopr.) . Computer history. Date of treatment June 10, 2012. Archived on September 7, 2012.
• Computer Sciences - Milestones // Open Systems. - 1997. - No. 5 .
• Polunov Yu. Electronic, universal ... (neopr.) . PC Week (April 18, 2006). Date of treatment June 10, 2012. Archived on September 7, 2012.