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Howard Hathaway Aiken
(9 Mar 1900 - 14 Mar 1973)
American mathematician.
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Science Quotes by Howard Hathaway Aiken (7 quotes)
At the present time there exist problems beyond our ability to solve, not because of theoretical difficulties, but because of insufficient means of mechanical computation.
— Howard Hathaway Aiken
In 'Proposed Automatic Calculating Machine' (1937). As quoted in I. Bernard Cohen, Gregory W. Welch (eds.), Makin' Numbers: Howard Aiken and the Computer (1999), 13.
Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.
— Howard Hathaway Aiken
As quoted, without citation, in Robert Slater, Portraits in Silicon (1987), 88. In reply to a student expressing concern that his own ideas might be stolen before he had published his own thesis. Also seen as “Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats,” in Eric A. Weiss, A Computer Science Reader: Selections from ABACUS (1988), 404. (The selections were published in the first three-and-a-half years of ABACUS, a quarterly journal for computing professionals.)
I am a simple man and I want simple answers.
— Howard Hathaway Aiken
Said to be a favorite line a favorite line of his when challenging his students. As stated, without citation in Robert Slater, Portraits in Silicon (1987), 88.
If Babbage had lived seventy-five years later I would have been out of a job.
— Howard Hathaway Aiken
As quoted in Jeremy Bernstein, The Analytical Engine: Computers, Past, Present, and Future (1964), 52. Note: Aiken created the Harvard Mark I computer in the 1940s. Babbage died in 1871.
Only six electronic digital computers would be required to satisfy the computing needs of the entire United States.
— Howard Hathaway Aiken
(1947). As quoted, without citation, as an epigraph in Jeremy M. Norman, From Gutenberg to the Internet: A Sourcebook on the History of Information Technology (2007), Vol. 2, 3.
The desire to economize time and mental effort in arithmetical computations, and to eliminate human liability to error is probably as old as the science of arithmetic itself.
— Howard Hathaway Aiken
Opening of proposal submitted to I.B.M., 'Proposed Automatic Calculating Machine' (1937). As quoted by I. Bernard Cohen, in Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer (2000), 63.
There’s my education in computers, right there; this is the whole thing, everything I took out of a book.
— Howard Hathaway Aiken
From talking with Howard Aiken, as quoted by author I. Bernard Cohen, in Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer (2000), 66. Cohen list three particular books that Aiken said he read carefully: E. M. Horsburgh (ed.), Modem Instruments and Methods of Calculation: A Handbook of the Napier Tercentenary Exhibition (1914); D. Baxandall (ed.), Calculating Machines and Instruments: Catalogue of the Collections in the Science Museum (1926); and later, Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864).
Quotes by others about Howard Hathaway Aiken (1)
[Howard] Aiken considered Babbage his intellectual “father.”
As stated in Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer (2000), 61.
See also:
- 9 Mar - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Aiken's birth.
- Howard Aiken: Portrait of a Computer Pioneer, by I. Bernard Cohen. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
