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The MANIAC I (''Mathematical Analyzer Numerical Integrator and Automatic Computer Model I'') was an early computer built under the direction of

Nicholas Metropolis Nicholas Constantine Metropolis (Greek: ; June 11, 1915 – October 17, 1999) was a Greek-American physicist. Metropolis received his BSc (1937) and PhD in physics (1941, with Robert Mulliken) at the University of Chicago. Shortly afterwards, ...

at the

Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in ...

. It was based on the

von Neumann architecture The von Neumann architecture — also known as the von Neumann model or Princeton architecture — is a computer architecture based on a 1945 description by John von Neumann, and by others, in the ''First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC''. The ...

of the

IAS IAS may refer to: Science * Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, United States * Image Analysis & Stereology, the official journal of the International Society for Stereology & Image Analysis. * Iowa Archeological Society, Uni ...

, developed by

John von Neumann John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...

. As with all computers of its era, it was a one-of-a-kind machine that could not exchange programs with other computers (even the several other machines based on the IAS). Metropolis chose the name MANIAC in the hope of stopping the rash of silly acronyms for machine names, although

von Neumann Von Neumann may refer to: * John von Neumann (1903–1957), a Hungarian American mathematician * Von Neumann family * Von Neumann (surname), a German surname * Von Neumann (crater), a lunar impact crater See also * Von Neumann algebra * Von Ne ...

may have suggested the name to him. The MANIAC weighed about . The first task assigned to the Los Alamos Maniac was to perform more precise and extensive calculations of the thermonuclear process. In 1953, the MANIAC obtained the first equation of state calculated by modified

Monte Carlo integration In mathematics, Monte Carlo integration is a technique for numerical integration using random numbers. It is a particular Monte Carlo method that numerically computes a definite integral. While other algorithms usually evaluate the integrand a ...

over configuration space. In 1956, MANIAC I became the first computer to defeat a human being in a chess-like game. The chess variant, called

Los Alamos chess Los Alamos chess (or anti- clerical chessAnderson (1986), p. 105) is a chess variant played on a 6×6 board without bishops. This was the first chess-like game played by a computer program. This program was written at Los Alamos Scientific Lab ...

, was developed for a 6x6 chessboard (no bishops) due to the limited amount of memory and computing power of the machine. The MANIAC ran successfully in March 1952 and was shut down on July 15, 1958. However, it was transferred to the University of New Mexico in bad condition, and was restored to full operation by Dale Sparks, PhD. It was featured in at least two UNM Maniac programming dissertations from 1963. It remained in operation until it was retired in 1965. It was succeeded by

MANIAC II The MANIAC II (''Mathematical Analyzer Numerical Integrator and Automatic Computer Model II'') was a first-generation electronic computer, built in 1957 for use at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. MANIAC II was built by the University of Califor ...

in 1957. A third version

MANIAC III The MANIAC III (''Mathematical Analyzer Numerical Integrator and Automatic Computer Model III'') was a second-generation electronic computer (i.e., using solid-state electronics rather than vacuum tubes), built in 1961 for use at the Institute for ...

was built at the

Institute for Computer Research An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1964.

Notable MANIAC programmers

Mary Tsingou Mary Tsingou (married name: Mary Tsingou-Menzel; born October 14, 1928) is an American physicist and mathematician of Greek descent. She was one of the first programmers on the MANIAC computer at Los Alamos National Laboratory and is best known ...

- developed algorithm used in the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou problem *

Klara Dan von Neumann Klara may refer to: * Klara, a female given name, see Clara (given name) * Klara (radio), a classical-music radio station in Belgium * Klara (singer), birth name Klára Vytisková (born 1985), Czech singer * Klara (Stockholm), an area of central S ...

- wrote the first programs for MANIAC I *

Dana Scott Dana Stewart Scott (born October 11, 1932) is an American logician who is the emeritus Hillman University Professor of Computer Science, Philosophy, and Mathematical Logic at Carnegie Mellon University; he is now retired and lives in Berkeley, Ca ...

- programmed the MANIAC to enumerate all solutions to a

pentomino Derived from the Greek word for ' 5', and "domino", a pentomino (or 5-omino) is a polyomino of order 5, that is, a polygon in the plane made of 5 equal-sized squares connected edge-to-edge. When rotations and reflections are not considered to ...

puzzle by backtracking in 1958. *

Marjorie Devaney Marjorie Ann "Marge" Jones Devaney (March 3, 1931 – September 20, 2007) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and computer scientist who assisted in the development of the MANIAC I (Mathematical Analyzer Numerical Integrator And ...

- one of the first MANIAC I programmers. *

Arianna W. Rosenbluth Arianna Wright Rosenbluth (September 15, 1927 – December 28, 2020) was an American physicist who contributed to the development of the Metropolis–Hastings algorithm. She wrote the first full implementation of the Markov chain Monte Carlo meth ...

- wrote the first full implementation of the widely used

Markov chain Monte Carlo In statistics, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods comprise a class of algorithms for sampling from a probability distribution. By constructing a Markov chain that has the desired distribution as its equilibrium distribution, one can obtain ...

algorithm. * Paul Stein and Mark Wells - implemented

.Pritchard (1994), p. 175

References

*Brewster, Mike
John von Neumann: MANIAC's Fatherarchived
in ''BusinessWeek Online'', April 8, 2004. *Harlow, Francis H. and N. Metropolis
Computing & Computers: Weapons Simulation Leads to the Computer Era
including photos of MANIAC I * * ** *

External links

*Photos: ** ** ** {{Mainframes IAS architecture computers Vacuum tube computers