Per an account by Donald Knuth[1], 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] but Forsythe brought it to public view, in Knuth’s opinion.
In an oral history with Albert Bowker of Stanford[3] he relates discussions in 1956 about the formation of a computer science program.[1] Donald E. Knuth. 1972. George Forsythe and the development of computer science. Commun. ACM 15, 8 (August 1972), 721-726.
[2] Ibid. p. 722.
[3] 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
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
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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@warwick.ac.uk
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