Re: [9fans] Sad News

[Nick LaForge <nicklaforge@gmail.com>]

> It is so sad that the people most responsible for the key software
> technologies are almost unheard of by the general public, and most
> credit seems to be given to people that jump on the bandwagon much
> later..

> If there was a Nobel prize for software, dmr would have been one of
> the top on my list.

The public's traditional fascination with physics makes an interesting
comparison, considering the relative obscurity computer science
enjoys.

Physics' gifts include nuclear fission, medical imaging, aerospace,
semiconducting... the list is enumerable. Yet the greatest celebrity
among physicists undoubtedly is Albert Einstein, who's contributions
are most significant theoretically (aerospace aside).  So it seems
fitting that a similarly theoretical and precise discipline like
computer science should enjoy comparable status (in opposition to the
actual situation where Gates and Jobs get the glory).  Ironically, the
real reason for mathematics omission by Nobel likely was that Alfred
Nobel thought it TOO theoretical a discipline (see
http://mathforum.org/social/articles/ross.html).  Regardless, it took
people like dmr (and Turing, Church, Shannon, Neumann, Dijkstra,
Backus, Forsythe, Floyd, Hoare, Knuth, ...) to map abstract
mathematical science onto workable machines.

Maybe such a collaborative science doesn't permit hero worship?  Dmr's
own publicly visible accomplishments alone make him worthy of it, yet
his humility was so apparent ("I'm not a person who particularly had
heros when growing up").  Perhaps his behind-the-scenes impact among
his colleagues at Bell Labs eclipse even what everyone else can see.

But it's still sad that among those acquainted with Einstein and his
contributions, less than 1% seem to even know who Turing was.

Nick