Fact of the Day: 21/12/2022

Even if you don’t know much about computers, you most likely know what a “bug” is. Well, the term bug actually came from a woman named Grace Hopper. Who was Grace Hopper? Hopper was a computer engineer and made many big contributions to the technology world. She was born on December 9, 1906. Even when she was young, she was interested in engineering and was extremely curious all around. She attended Vassar College and later went to Yale, where she earned a Ph.D. in mathematics (par. 2). She started teaching at Vassar, but then joined the Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service). There, she became a lieutenant and worked on a computation project at Harvard. As she worked on this project, she came up with the word “bug” as a way to describe a malfunction in a computer system (par. 3). She continued research throughout her life and even helped develop early computer languages (par. 4). Even though she died in 1992, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 (par. 6). Just think about where technology would be without the dedication and hard work of people like Grace Hopper.

Reference(s): https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/grace-hopper 

Fact Author: Bailey W.

Fact Editor: Ace

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