Scientist in Uniform: The Harvard Computation Laboratory in World War II

Authors

Kathleen Broome Williams

Abstract

In Spring 1998, construction of the new Maxwell Dworkin computer sciences building began at the northeast corner of Harvard University's Holmes Field. The site had once housed the Aiken Computation Laboratory, scathingly described in the previous fall's Harvard Magazine as a "cobbled together structure unloved by those who toiled there."' Two years before, Harvard dropout Bill Gates and his Microsoft associate and Harvard classmate Steven Ballmer together had given twenty-five million dollars to Harvard to endow a faculty chair and to build a new computer science facility. But instead of continuing to honor the name of Howard Hathaway Aiken-founder of Harvard's trailblazing computing program and a naval re­ serve officer who directed the Navy's original rese.uch and applications of com­ puters-the new center is to be named for the mothers of the two recent benefactors.

Recommended Citation

Williams, Kathleen Broome (1999) "Scientist in Uniform: The Harvard Computation Laboratory in World War II," Naval War College Review: Vol. 52: No. 3, Article 5.
Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol52/iss3/5