Healthy Mama Magazine Issue 7 - January 2015 | Page 68

This

Goo month's
dnes
s
h

ero

Grace MURRAY
1906 - 1992
You probably wouldn’t be able to read this if it
hadn’t been for Grace Murray Hopper.
Grace showed an intense curiosity in how things worked from a very young age.
Encouraged by her parents this curiosity lead to a doctorate in mathematics in 1934 an uncommon achievement for a woman at the time.

“Humans are allergic
to change. They love
to say, "We've always
done it this way." I try
to fight that. That's
why I have a clock on
my wall that runs
counter-clockwise.”

She joined the navy during World War II and started work
in the Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard
University where she became a computer programmer.
She soon realized that the complex numerical computer
languages that she and her colleagues were using rendered
these new machines useless for most people. She was convinced that there would be more programmers if the computers could
speak the same language as people. She set about rectifying the problem
and invented the first user-friendly computer language which allowed the
use of English instead of numerical instructions. This language, COBOL,
became the first universal computer language used in business and
government. It is still in use today and the basis of all that came afterwards.

So next time you buy a new program for your computer or download an app give a little nod to Rear
Admiral Grace Murray Hopper and her inextinguishable curiosity.

We would like to know who your hero is... Share with us on

MAG
68