DRAFT CORRECTIONS - Post 23: Akio Arakawa + Yale Mintz
DRAFT CORRECTIONS - Post 23: Akio Arakawa + Yale Mintz
Post: _posts/2026-04-22-The-fireman-and-the-visionary.md
Three substantive factual errors, one counting error, and a couple of phrasings to consider. All proposed edits below are minimal, targeted, and preserve the post’s voice.
Correction 1 (MAJOR): Conway Leovy was a RAND researcher, not a UCLA grad student
Current text (around line 138):
“In the mid-1960s, while Arakawa was still refining the terrestrial GCM, Mintz began a parallel project with a UCLA graduate student named Conway Leovy.”
Issue:
Conway Leovy received his PhD in Meteorology from MIT in 1963 (BA Physics/Math USC 1954). Before joining the University of Washington faculty in 1968, he was a research meteorologist at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California. He was not a UCLA graduate student under Mintz. The two collaborated across UCLA-RAND, with a RAND research memorandum (RM-5110, “A numerical general circulation experiment for the atmosphere of Mars,” Leovy & Mintz, 1966) preceding the formal 1969 J. Atmos. Sci. paper.
Proposed edit:
“In the mid-1960s, while Arakawa was still refining the terrestrial GCM, Mintz began a parallel project with Conway Leovy, an MIT-trained meteorologist then at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica.”
Bonus: paper citation
Currently the post says the Mars work was “first described in papers in the mid-1960s and formalised through the late 1960s.” The formal published paper is:
Leovy, C. B., and Mintz, Y. (1969). “Numerical Simulation of the Atmospheric Circulation and Climate of Mars.” Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 26(6), 1167-1190.
A footnote with this citation would be useful but is optional.
Correction 2 (MAJOR): Vivian Lamb was an atmospheric scientist, not a “computer scientist”
Current text (around line 102):
“Arakawa understood this by the late 1960s. With his collaborator Vivian Lamb – a UCLA computer scientist who was not, despite the name, the atmospheric modeller – he worked out a systematic catalogue of alternatives.”
Issue:
Vivian R. Lamb was a member of the UCLA Department of Atmospheric Sciences. She co-authored two foundational atmospheric-modeling papers with Arakawa as a scientific peer:
- Arakawa & Lamb (1977), Methods in Computational Physics 17, 173-265 (the grid taxonomy paper).
- Arakawa & Lamb (1981), “A Potential Enstrophy and Energy Conserving Scheme for the Shallow Water Equations,” Monthly Weather Review 109(1), 18-36.
The parenthetical also contains a confusing aside (“not, despite the name, the atmospheric modeller”) that appears to be guarding against confusion with another person of similar name (perhaps Hugh E. Lamb, the British climatologist, or Peter Lamb of NOAA). Neither distinction is needed.
Proposed edit:
“Arakawa understood this by the late 1960s. With his UCLA Atmospheric Sciences colleague Vivian R. Lamb he worked out a systematic catalogue of alternatives.”
Correction 3 (LIKELY ERROR): IBM 7090 at UCLA Medical School, not IBM 709 at Business School
Current text (around line 66):
“UCLA’s own computer in the early 1960s was not powerful enough to run a GCM. Mintz arranged, through his administrative channels, weekend access to the IBM 709 at the UCLA Business School. The 709 had 32 000 words of core memory.”
Issue:
Two factual problems:
- The computer was an IBM 7090, not an IBM 709. (The 7090 was the transistorized successor to the 709 and is what UCLA actually had by 1961.)
- Per Paul Edwards’s A Vast Machine UCLA chapter, the weekend-access machine was at the UCLA Medical School (or, in parallel, the Western Data Processing Center which installed three IBM 7090s in 1961). The “Business School” attribution does not match any source I could verify.
The 7090’s core memory of 32,768 words of 36 bits is also consistent with the post’s “32 000 words” figure (so the size claim is fine for either machine).
Proposed edit:
“UCLA’s own computer in the early 1960s was not powerful enough to run a GCM. Mintz arranged, through his administrative channels, weekend access to an IBM 7090 – according to Paul Edwards’s history of the UCLA group, the machine at the UCLA Medical School which sat idle on weekends. The 7090 had 32 000 words of core memory.”
(If a more specific source confirms Western Data Processing Center instead of Medical School, that could be substituted. Both are documented in the literature.)
Correction 4 (MINOR counting error): “Panel of eight scientists” – actually nine
Current text (around line 150):
“Charney assembled a panel of eight scientists: himself as chair, D. James Baker of the Joint Oceanographic Institutions, Bert Bolin of Stockholm, Robert Dickinson of NCAR, Richard Goody of Harvard, Cecil Leith of NCAR, Henry Stommel of Woods Hole, Carl Wunsch of MIT – and, as the sole representative of the atmospheric-modelling community, Akio Arakawa.”
Issue:
The sentence lists nine people (Charney, Baker, Bolin, Dickinson, Goody, Leith, Stommel, Wunsch, Arakawa). Wikipedia’s Charney Report page also lists nine panel members.
Proposed edit (least invasive):
Change “eight scientists” to “nine scientists”:
“Charney assembled a panel of nine scientists: himself as chair, D. James Baker of the Joint Oceanographic Institutions, …”
Alternative phrasing:
“Charney chaired a panel of nine: himself, D. James Baker…”
Optional polish (NOT errors, just suggestions)
a) Jacob Bjerknes founding context
Post: “the new Department of Meteorology that Jacob Bjerknes had founded at UCLA in 1940”
UCLA history page lists three founders: J. Bjerknes, J. Holmboe, J. Kaplan. Bjerknes was the first chair and senior figure, so this is defensible shortening, but a more accurate phrasing would be “the new Department of Meteorology that Jacob Bjerknes had co-founded at UCLA in 1940” or “the new Department of Meteorology that Jacob Bjerknes chaired (founded jointly with Holmboe and Kaplan in 1940)”. Optional polish, not required.
b) Mintz’s death date
The post cites April 27, 1991 per the UCLA In Memoriam. One genealogical record (palevsky.org) gives May 27, 1991. Weight of authoritative sources (UCLA In Memoriam, multiple secondary tributes, the AMS) supports April 27. No change recommended – post is correct as-is.
c) David Randall’s path to CSU
Post: “David Randall, who brought UCLA IV with him”
Randall went UCLA PhD 1976 -> MIT -> NASA -> CSU 1988. The post’s wording is fine.
d) Birthplace of Arakawa
Post: “Akio Arakawa was born in Tokyo on July 20, 1927”. Wikipedia confirms July 20, 1927. Birthplace “Tokyo” is consistent with his oral-history account of fire-warden duty during the Tokyo air raids; no source contradicts. Acceptable.
e) Mintz’s birthplace
Post says Manhattan; the original task brief watch-list said “Brooklyn”. Genealogical record (palevsky.org) confirms Manhattan. Post is correct. No change.
Summary
| Item | Severity | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Conway Leovy described as “UCLA graduate student” | MAJOR factual error | Rewrite sentence (Correction 1) |
| Vivian Lamb described as “computer scientist” | MAJOR factual error | Rewrite sentence (Correction 2) |
| “IBM 709 at UCLA Business School” | LIKELY error (7090 / Medical School) | Rewrite sentence (Correction 3) |
| “Panel of eight scientists” | MINOR counting error | One-word fix (Correction 4) |
| Bjerknes “founded” UCLA Meteorology | Acceptable shorthand | Optional polish |
| Mintz death April 27 / May 27 | Disputed but post follows authoritative source | No change |