John Vincent Atanasoff
American physicist who invented the first electronic digital computer.
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via Wikipedia: John Vincent Atanasoff · see source
John Vincent Atanasoff, a physicist and inventor, was born on October 4, 1903, in Hamilton, New York.[1] During the 1930s at Iowa State College, Atanasoff created what is recognized as the first electronic digital computer.[2] The 1973 court case Honeywell v. Sperry Rand resulted in a ruling that Atanasoff was the computer's inventor.[3]
Life and work
Atanasoff left Iowa State in 1941 for a wartime role as Chief of the Acoustic Division at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory.[4] Atanasoff earned a master's degree in mathematics from Iowa State College in 1926, and a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1930.[5] During June 1941, John Mauchly spent four days as a houseguest of Atanasoff in Ames, Iowa.[4] At age 91, Atanasoff suffered a stroke and died on June 15, 1995, at his Maryland home.[1]
What the cited sources add
The biography from president.bg notes that Atanasoff's favorite sport was volleyball.[6] The same source states that after graduating in June 1926 he married a few days later.[6] The Minor Planet Center records that asteroid 3546 Atanasoff was discovered on September 28, 1983, by the Bulgarian National Observatory.[7] The president.bg biography reports that Atanasoff visited Bulgaria twice, with his second visit in May 1985 after the patent dispute was resolved in his favor.[6]
References
- Wikipedia, "John Vincent Atanasoff" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Walter R. Baranger, "John V. Atanasoff, 91, Dies; Early Computer Researcher", The New York Times, June 17, 1995 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "John Vincent Atanasoff" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Who's Who in America 1995", Marquis Who's Who, 1994, p. 129 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "John Vincent Atanasoff" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Invitation to Computer Science"; "John Vincent Atanasoff - the father of the computer", www.columbia.edu; "Kiplinger's Personal Finance"; "Portraits in Silicon" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "John Vincent Atanasoff" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Mackintosh, "The First Electronic Computer", Physics Today, 1987, p. 25-32; Walter R. Baranger, "John V. Atanasoff, 91, Dies; Early Computer Researcher", The New York Times, June 17, 1995; Mackintosh, "The First Electronic Computer", Physics Today, 1987, p. 25-32 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "John Vincent Atanasoff" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Walter R. Baranger, "John V. Atanasoff, 91, Dies; Early Computer Researcher", The New York Times, June 17, 1995; Walter R. Baranger, "John V. Atanasoff, 91, Dies; Early Computer Researcher", The New York Times, June 17, 1995 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "Biography of John Atanasoff", president.bg. facts only, no text reused. m.president.bg
- "Minor Planet Center, object 3546", Minor Planet Center. facts only, no text reused. minorplanetcenter.net
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article John Vincent Atanasoff (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: John Vincent Atanasoff (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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