Before Palm Pilots and iPods, PCs and laptops, the term
"computer" referred to the people who did scientific calculations
by hand. These workers were neither calculating geniuses nor idiot
savants but knowledgeable people who, in other circumstances, might
have become scientists in their own right. "When Computers Were
Human" represents the first in-depth account of this little-known,
200-year epoch in the history of science and technology.
Beginning with the story of his own grandmother, who was trained
as a human computer, David Alan Grier provides a poignant
introduction to the wider world of women and men who did the hard
computational labor of science. His grandmother's casual remark, "I
wish I'd used my calculus," hinted at a career deferred and an
education forgotten, a secret life unappreciated; like many highly
educated women of her generation, she studied to become a human
computer because nothing else would offer her a place in the
scientific world.
The book begins with the return of Halley's comet in 1758 and
the effort of three French astronomers to compute its orbit. It
ends four cycles later, with a UNIVAC electronic computer
projecting the 1986 orbit. In between, Grier tells us about the
surveyors of the French Revolution, describes the calculating
machines of Charles Babbage, and guides the reader through the
Great Depression to marvel at the giant computing room of the Works
Progress Administration.
"When Computers Were Human" is the sad but lyrical story of
workers who gladly did the hard labor of research calculation in
the hope that they might be part of the scientific community. In
the end, they were rewarded by a new electronic machine that took
the place and the name of those who were, once, the computers.
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