George Elmer Forsythe (January 8, 1917 – April 9, 1972) was an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

and

numerical analyst Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of numerical methods ...

who founded and led

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

's Computer Science Department. Forsythe is often credited with coining the term "computer science" and is recognized as a founding figure in the field. Forsythe came to Stanford in the Mathematics Department in 1959, and served as professor and chairman of the Computer Science department from 1965 until his death. He served as the president of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

(ACM), and also co-authored four books on

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

and a fifth on

meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...

, and edited more than 75 other books on computer science.

Early life

George Elmer Forsythe was born on January 8, 1917 in

State College, Pennsylvania State College is a home rule municipality in Centre County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is a college town, dominated economically, culturally and demographically by the presence of the University Park campus of the Pennsylvania Sta ...

. Forsythe's family moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan when George was a young boy. Forsythe became interested in computing at a young age, experimenting with hand-cranked desk calculators. Forsythe earned a Bachelor of Science in mathematics at

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...

in 1937, where he was awarded a scholarship. He completed a Ph.D. in mathematics at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1941 under the direction of Jacob David Tamarkin. After receiving his doctorate, Forsythe went to Stanford University to work as an instructor in mathematics. His teaching career was interrupted by service in the

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

and a stint at

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

Professional life

Forsythe married Alexandra I. Forsythe, who wrote the first published textbook in computer science and actively participated in her husband's work, while promoting a more active role for women than was common at the time. Between 1950 and 1958 both of them programmed using the SWAC at the

National Bureau of Standards The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

(NBS) in Los Angeles and later at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

after the western division of NBS was closed due to political pressures (see Oral History cited below). With his wife, Forsythe had a daughter and a son. According to

Donald Knuth Donald Ervin Knuth ( ; born January 10, 1938) is an American computer scientist, mathematician, and professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally considered the Nobel Prize of computer sc ...

, Forsythe's greatest contributions were helping to establish

as its own academic discipline and starting the field of refereeing and editing

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...

s as scholarly work. Professor Forsythe supervised 17 PhD graduates; many of them went into academic careers. He won a

Lester R. Ford Award Lester is an ancient Anglo-Saxon surname and given name. Notable people and characters with the name include: People Given name * Lester Bangs (1948–1982), American music critic * Lester W. Bentley (1908–1972), American artist from Wisc ...

in 1969 and again in 1971.

Books by Forsythe

* ''Dynamic Meteorology'' (with William Gustin and

Jørgen Holmboe Jørgen Holmboe (November 8, 1902 – October 29, 1979) was a Norwegian-American meteorologist. Life and career Jørgen Holmboe was born near Hammerfest, Norway, on an island a short distance from the northernmost point in Norway. He was the ...

John Wiley & Sons John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in p ...

, New York, 1945, 378+xvi pp. * ** ''Bibliography of Russian Mathematics Books'', Chelsea, New York, 1956, 106 pp. * ''Numerical analysis and partial differential equations. Contemporary state of numerical analysis'', Wiley 1958 (with Paul C. Rosenbloom: ''Linear partial equations'') * ''Finite Difference Methods for Partial Differential Equations (with Wolfgang Wasow), John Wiley, New York, 1966, 444 pp. * ''Computer Solution of Linear Algebraic Systems'' (with Cleve B. Moler),

Prentice-Hall Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari B ...

, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1967, 153 pp. * ''Computer methods for mathematical computations'' (with Michael A. Malcolm and Cleve B. Moler), Prentice-Hall Series in Automatic Computation, Prentice-Hall., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1977. This book about numerical methods was partly finished when Forsythe died. Knuth's 1972 CACM article lists all of Forsythe's published works.

References

External links

* * *
Oral history interview with Alexandra Forsythe

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

, University of Minnesota. Forsythe discusses the career of her husband, George Forsythe, and his founding and early years of the Stanford Computer Science Department.
Oral history interview with Albert H. Bowker

. Bowker discusses his role in the formation of the Stanford University computer science department, his hiring of George Forsythe in 1959, and the creation of a Division of Computer Science in 1963
Oral history interview with John Herriot

, University of Minnesota. Discusses the formation and development of the Stanford Computer Science Department, centering on the role of George Forsythe. {{DEFAULTSORT:Forsythe, George 1917 births 1972 deaths American computer scientists Stanford University Department of Computer Science faculty Stanford University Department of Mathematics faculty Presidents of the Association for Computing Machinery American Quakers Swarthmore College alumni Brown University alumni 20th-century Quakers