Wallace John Eckert

Wallace John Eckert ( born June 19, 1902 in Pittsburgh, † August 24, 1971 ) was an American astronomer and pioneering scientific computing with computers, especially in astronomy.

Eckert studied at Columbia University and the University of Chicago and received his PhD in 1931 at Yale University in Astronomy at Ernest William Brown. 1926 to 1970 he was professor of astronomy at Columbia University, where he was director and founder of the 1937 Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau, at the early celestial mechanics calculations ( determination of the orbit planets, comets ) were performed with punch-card computers. The laboratory by Thomas J. Watson of IBM, then producer of punch card machines were supported. In the 1940s, the methods also have been applied in the Manhattan Project, where Richard Feynman previously carried out the extensive numerical calculations with a whole group of operators on desktop calculators. 1940 to 1945 he was director of the U.S. Naval Observatory Nautical Almanac Office. From 1945 he was the founder and director of the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory at Columbia University. There and at the same time as a senior scientist at IBM, he led the development of the SSEC ( Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator IBM ). As early as 1946 he gave courses at Columbia University in scientific computing with computers. At his lab also from 1948, the IBM 610 " desktop computer " was developed. His book from 1940 is considered the first book on scientific computing with computers. In 1967 he went to Columbia University to retire.

Eckert was also responsible for the path calculation of the moon during the Apollo program to the moon landing, an area for which he was regarded as the leading authority ( as before his teacher Brown). In 1966 he was awarded the James Craig Watson Medal of the National Academy of Sciences ( an award in astronomy).

He is not related to the computer pioneer John Presper Eckert.

The asteroid (1750 ), Eckert and a moon crater ( Eckert (crater ) ) are named after him.

Writings

• Punched card methods in scientific computation, 1940, reprint by MIT Press 1984