Howard aiken biography invention

American physicist

Howard Hathaway Aiken (March 8, – March 14, ) was an American physicist and a pioneer in computing.

He was the original conceptual designer behind IBM's Harvard Mark I, the United States' first programmablecomputer.^[1][2]

Biography

Aiken was born on 8 March , in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Daniel Aiken, who came from a wealthy and established Indiana family, and Margaret Emily Mierisch, whose parents were German immigrants.^[3] He grew up in Indianapolis where he graduated from Arsenal Technical High School in ^[4] Aiken studied at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he received his B.S.

in electrical engineering in He later obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from Harvard University in and , respectively.^[4] During this time, he encountered differential equations that he could only solve numerically.

Inspired by Charles Babbage's difference engine, he envisioned an electro-me