Jay Wright Forrester

Jay Wright Forrester (* July 14, 1918 in Climax, Nebraska ) is an American pioneer of computer engineering and systems science. He is regarded as the founder of System Dynamics and developed in the Whirlwind project first large random access memory ( forerunner of RAM). Forrester was a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Biography

Forrester was born the son of a teacher couple who lived on a remote farm as farmers. The age of nine he pointed out many repairs of technical equipment on the farm alone. After a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at the University of Nebraska, the master followed at MIT, where he was to spend his life.

Within the Whirlwind project ( a flight simulator ), of which he was in 1944, he developed the " Multicoordinate Digital Information Storage Device ', the forerunner of today's RAM ( Random Access Memory), and an improved version of An Wang's core memory. The corresponding patent he filed on May 11, 1951 and received it as U.S. Patent No. 2,736,880 on February 28, 1956. Forrester also created the first animation in the history of computer graphics, a " bouncing ball " on an oscilloscope. Forrester's student Ken Olsen founded the Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1950s.

In 1956, Forrester, System Dynamics Group at the Sloan School of Management at MIT, thus founding the field of System Dynamics to German system dynamics, which are also staying in Germany from the at MIT and co-operating with Forrester Gert was made ​​known by Kortzfleisch. The group studied by simulation method, the interactions between objects in complex dynamic systems. They find application in diverse areas, including methods were the basis of the Forresters classic 1972 book The Limits to Growth ( German The Limits to Growth ) met the Club of Rome, the Forrester by his pupil Zahn.

In 1981 he received the Computer Pioneer Award for his memory development.