The Bug that wasn't really a Bug - Computer Pioneer Grace Murray Hopper.
Most of you might think that computers is one of these men's business things. Far from it!. Not even that it was a girl who was the very first programmer in history - Ada Augusta King Countess of Lovelace - it was also a woman in the early days of computers, who developed the very first compiler to translate high level language computer programs into low level machine commands. But besides her merits in computer science, we also owe the term 'to Grace Hopper and the story goes like this.... It was on September 9 in 1947 when Grace Hopper was working on a Mark II Computer at Harvard University which was known for its high-speed electromagnetic relays. However, a moth was stuck in between the relays and after removing it, Hopper taped the moth into the log book, noting that the "First actual case of bug being found.". The story of Hopper's 'soon spread widely and caused that the term was from then on used for computer problems. However, the term 'bugs' for causing mechanical or electronic issues has a longer history and is to be attributed to the famous inventor Thomas Edison. In 1878 he wrote a letter to the inventor of the telephone exchange, Tivadar Puskás mentioning 'bugs' as being responsible for his technical difficulties: Even though Grace Hopper was not the 'inventor' of the term, she did a great job distributing it widely considering computer errors, but it must be said that this was not her only achievement during her long career as a computer scientist and US-Navy officer. Grace Hopper has always been one of the curious kids, taking alarm clocks apart when she was seven and building toy vehicles she had designed by herself. After receiving her Ph.D from Yale University in 1934 she started teaching mathematics and joined the US-Navy at the age of 37. Soon she was assigned to a Computation Project at Harvard University as lieutenant working on the Mark I which was a special computer due to its Turing completeness (meaning that it was universally programmable). Some years later, she was developing the UNIVAC I and could make major contributions in designing the computer language COBOL special due to its high dependence on the natural human language. Grace Hopper depicts a pioneer in computer science and was honored numerous times, for instance she ironically won the 'man of the year' award in 1969. She also received the National Medal of Technology in 1991. At yovisto you can watch a lecture of author Kurt W. Beyer presenting his biography 'Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age'.