WOMEN IN SCIENCE GRACE HOPPER COMPUTER SCIENTIST By Jill C Wheeler Content Consultant Dr C Dianne Martin Professor Emeritus of Computer Science George Washington University Essential Library An Imprint of Abdo Publishing abdopublishing com
CHAPTER ONE THERE’S GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY The summer of 1949 found Grace Hopper frustrated She had a PhD in mathematics from Yale University Yet she could not get her checkbook to balance After several months of struggling she asked her brother Roger for help Roger pored over the columns of her checkbook register checking and rechecking Roger realized that sometimes Hopper subtracted correctly but other times she did not Finally he realized the problem His sister had been mixing up normal numbers with octal a mathematical system based on eight digits instead of the standard base of ten Roger’s findings got Hopper thinking Since June 1949 she had been working for the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation or EMCC as a senior mathematician The start-up Grace Hopper a leader in the computer programming field helped change the way computers receive data and provide feedback 5
