[SIGCIS-Members] Origin of "Computer Science"

[Ian S. King]

Here is a bit from some research I did a while back to answer a related
question.  Perhaps this may be of help. Sorry for the wonky cut-and-paste.
 -- Ian

Per an account by Donald
Knuth[1]<file:///C:/Users/iank/Downloads/Emergence%20of%20CS%20-%201-3-13.doc#_ftn1>,
in 1961 George Forsythe at Stanford University was using that term and
promoting such a department at Stanford.  Louis Fein had evidently been
speaking of the concept as early as
1957[2]<file:///C:/Users/iank/Downloads/Emergence%20of%20CS%20-%201-3-13.doc#_ftn2>but
Forsythe brought it to public view, in Knuth’s opinion.
In an oral history with Albert Bowker of
Stanford[3]<file:///C:/Users/iank/Downloads/Emergence%20of%20CS%20-%201-3-13.doc#_ftn3>he
relates discussions in 1956 about the formation of a computer science
program.

------------------------------

[1]<file:///C:/Users/iank/Downloads/Emergence%20of%20CS%20-%201-3-13.doc#_ftnref1>
Donald
E. Knuth. 1972. George Forsythe and the development of computer
science. *Commun.
ACM* 15, 8 (August 1972), 721-726.

[2]<file:///C:/Users/iank/Downloads/Emergence%20of%20CS%20-%201-3-13.doc#_ftnref2>Ibid.
p. 722.

[3]<file:///C:/Users/iank/Downloads/Emergence%20of%20CS%20-%201-3-13.doc#_ftnref3>
Albert
H. Bowker, OH 6. Oral history interview by Pamela McCorduck, 21 May 1979,
Berkeley, Calif. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis. http://purl.umn.edu/107140


On Fri, Jun 28, 2013 at 10:59 AM, Martin Campbell-Kelly <
m.campbell-kelly at warwick.ac.uk> wrote:

> I’m trying to find when the term “computer science” came into general use.
> The term “software” seems to be quite accurately dated as appearing in 1960
> in several contemporary publications, but I have found nothing similar for
> computer science.****
>
> ** **
>
> Martin****
>
> ** **
>
> —****
>
> Martin Campbell-Kelly, Dept of Computer Science
> University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K.
> voice: +44 24 7652 3193 fax: +44 24 7657 3024
> email: M.Campbell-Kelly at warwick.ac.uk ****
>
> ** **
>
> _______________________________________________
> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list
> of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at
> http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription
> options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
>



-- 
Ian S. King, MSCS ('06, Washington)
Ph.D. Student
The Information School
University of Washington

"Be yourself, everyone else is already taken."  - Oscar Wilde
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/attachments/20130628/409df598/attachment-0001.htm>