[SIGCIS-Members] Our article on ENIAC and the first computerized Monte Carlo simulation discussed Klara von Neumann

Thomas Haigh thaigh at computer.org
Mon Sep 15 12:13:36 PDT 2014


Hello everyone,

 

The recent mention on this list of Klara von Neumann as an underappreciated
female pioneer of programming and scientific computation reminded me that
she has a central role in "Los Alamos Bets on ENIAC: Nuclear Monte Carlo
Simulations, 1947-48," which I recently published with Mark Priestley and
Crispin Rope. 

 

This is the third and final paper in our  series on ENIAC's 1947-1948
conversion to the modern code paradigm (i.e. the programming method
introduced in von Neumann's "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC") and the
implications of this for our conventional understanding of the story of the
"stored program computer." The Monte Carlo code in question is the best
documented programming effort of the 1940s and it was fascinating to
reconstruct its evolution through the initial process of planning and over
several major revisions. As I am recently urged you to beware the assumption
that "firsts" are automatically important, I hope you will forgive me for
mentioning in passing that this appears to be the first modern program ever
executed. We hope that this paper will also be of interest to historians of
science as well as to the core Annals audience, particularly as we fill some
substantial narrative holes left by Peter Galison when he covered some of
the same ground in his celebrated "Computer Simulation and the Trading Zone"
(later the basis of a chapter in his even more celebrated Image and Logic).

 

The paper is available from the IEEE Computer Society at
http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/an/2014/02/man2014020041-abs.html (please
use this method if you have access, as the clicks benefit Annals) or from my
personal website at
http://www.tomandmaria.com/tom/Writing/LosAlamosBetsOnENIAC.pdf. Various
supporting materials can be found at www.EniacInAction.com. 

 

Our thanks go to all those in the SIGCIS community who contributed to the
papers in this series.

 

Best wishes,

 

Tom

 

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