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Krawtchouk's Mind

Posted by Hemos on from the piecing-together-the-beginning-of-computers dept.

A reader writes: "Central Europe Review is running an article on a gulag-condemned Soviet scientist whose contribution to the first computer is virtually unknown because of the Cold War mentality that infected much of society on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The story tells of how in 1937, American digital computer pioneer John Atanasoff came across a Myhailo Krawtchouk paper on a new method for finding approximate solutions to differential equations. Atanasoff tried sending a letter to him, but received no response. Krawtchouk had been attainted for giving a favorable review of the work of "enemies of the people" and shipped to Siberia for 20 years of gold mining, where he died four years later. Krawtchouk's biography gives a more detailed account of how Krawtchouk was labeled a "Polish spy" and "Ukrainian nationalist," stripped of his Academy of Sciences membership, and forced to sign a confession -- that he later retracted -- under torture and threats upon his family. "

3 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. No mind is scarier.. by Large+Green+Mallard · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Than that of Dr Donald Knuth. In a bygone era, he would be grave robbing to find parts to bring his creations to life. Fortunately, we was born into the 20th century, and thus has spent his life on programming and algorithms.

    Well, aside from the bit, where after he didn't like the typesetting of his first book, he wrote a typesetting language and designed fonts for it, rewrote the book in TeX, a language of much evil and dark arts and had it printed again. Then retired to make it his lifes' work to perfect his books, "The Art of Computer Programming", or TAOCP

    Scary but brilliant man -> http://www-cs-staff.stanford.edu/~knuth/faq.html

  2. editorial abuse at its worst... by bani · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    /. has even less integrity than indymedia... and that is truly sad.

  3. Reason why these dictatorship always fail... by boy_afraid · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    It just goes to show you how/why these countries always fails are in BIG trouble. Germany lost the war because they executed all of the smart people. China had thier cultural revolution and sent every smart person to prison where most died. Vietnam had their execution of their smartest people. Same thing with Iraq and Afghanistan, the smart people where smart enough to get the HELL OUT of there. What's left? The stupid people! It shows today. Russia collapsed in a big implosion under it's own weight.

    It's no wonder you didn't see more people walking around with helmets on trying to wipe the drool off of thier faces. HA HA HA!