Who is the father of computer science?

Arpeggionist

I believe the title is usually given, with great veneration, to Charles Babbage, who invented the analytical engine. Mar 08 06, 5:45 AM

Froilan

it is not charles babbage Mar 08 06, 5:46 AM

Baloo55th

I'd go for Alan Turing http://www.seventhfam.com/university/compsci_school/cslinks.htm but I've found references while looking up this one to someone I've never heard of called Donald E. Knuth, and to Marvin Minsky. Minsky is 'one of the founding fathers', while Knuth see4ms to be always in quotes, but Turing is not in quotes. This suggests a greater certainty for Turing. He's my choice anyway, before I looked things up. Career cut tragically short or who knows what else he would have achieved. Mar 08 06, 6:03 AM

xfacilitatorx

Without this guy (or someone later), there would be no computers. Shockley, William B(radford) (1910–89) Physicist, born in London, UK. He studied at the California Institute of Technology and Harvard, began work with Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1936, and became professor of engineering at Stanford in 1963. During World War 2 he directed US research on antisubmarine warfare. In 1947 he helped devise the point-contact transistor. He then devised the junction transistor, which heralded a revolution in radio, TV, and computer circuitry. He shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956 with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. In his later years Shockley provoked outrage with his racist comments and sterilization schemes for people of low IQ. Mar 08 06, 11:39 AM

xfacilitatorx

This guy helped also! The modern electronic digital computer is the result of a long series of developments, which started some 5000 years ago with the abacus. The first mechanical adding device was developed in 1642 by the French scientist-philosopher, Pascal. His ‘arithmetic machine', was followed by the ‘stepped reckoner’ invented by Leibnitz in 1671, which was capable of also doing multiplication, division, and the evaluation of square roots by a series of stepped additions, not unlike the methods used in modern digital computers. In 1835, Charles Babbage formulated his concept of an ‘analytical machine’ which combined arithmetic processes with decisions based on the results of the computations. This was really the forerunner of the modern digital computer, in that it combined the principles of sequential control, branching, looping, and storage units. http://www.reference.com/browse/crystal/07788 http://www.reference.com/browse/crystal/07788 Mar 08 06, 11:42 AM

Baloo55th

Slight difference of direction here. In terms of Computer Science as opposed to Computer Building, Turing stands alone. http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Turing.html It was due to his work that successful computers were used in WW II for code-breaking. True, the modern computer would not exist if Shockley et al. hadn't developed the transistor, but valve-operated computers would exist. But the science behind the computers is Turing's. Mar 08 06, 12:05 PM

xfacilitatorx

I will agree on your points Baloo. The computer age dawns. Some of the boldest early steps into the computer age were taken in Britain. Alan Turing, the father of modern computing, did his main work at Cambridge University before joining the team of code-breakers at Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes. http://www.connected-earth.com/Galleries/Frombuttonstobytes/Intothedigitalera/Thecomputeragedawns/index.htm http://www.connected-earth.com/Galleries/Frombuttonstobytes/Intothedigitalera/Thecomputeragedawns/index.htm Mar 08 06, 12:22 PM

almanac23

Well the people whom you have named started because of Charles Babbage, so he must be teh father of computer science Mar 08 06, 4:05 PM

Baloo55th

Actually, no. Babbage worked way before tha computer age, and his analytical engine was never actually completed. (An example of it has recently(ish) been built as we now have the technology that he didn't - it worked.) He wasn't what I would describe as a 'father of'. No-one in modern computing owes anything much to Babbage's work, but they do to Turing. OK, if he hadn't written his stuff, someone eventually would have, but he did and paved the way directly to modern computing. Mar 08 06, 5:04 PM