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Herman Goldstine (1913–2004)

Basic Facts

  • Full name: Herman Heine Goldstine
  • Born: 13 September 1913, Chicago, Illinois
  • Died: 16 June 2004, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
  • Cause of death: After a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease

Family Background

Born in Chicago to Jewish parents. Little additional detail is recorded about his family of origin.

Education

  • University of Chicago: B.A. in Mathematics (1933), M.A. (1934), Ph.D. (1936). Joined Phi Beta Kappa. Studied ballistics theory under Gilbert Ames Bliss.

Career Timeline

Teaching (1936–1942)

  • After his doctorate, taught at the University of Michigan beginning in 1939. It was there that he met Adele Katz, a mathematics student; they married in 1941.

Army Service and ENIAC (1942–1945)

  • July 1942: Joined the U.S. Army. Commissioned as a lieutenant, he was posted to the Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, to work on firing tables.
  • Served as military liaison between BRL and the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, which was enlisted to increase firing-table production.
  • At the Moore School, engineer Joseph Chapline suggested Goldstine visit physicist John Mauchly, who had ideas about electronic computing. Goldstine recognized the potential.
  • June 1943: Together with Mauchly, Goldstine secured Army funding for the ENIAC project – a decisive act of bureaucratic championing that made ENIAC possible.

The Train Platform Meeting with von Neumann (Summer 1944)

One of the most consequential chance encounters in the history of computing: “In the summer of 1944 Goldstine had a chance encounter with the prominent mathematician John von Neumann on a railway platform in Aberdeen, Maryland.” When Goldstine described the ENIAC project, “the whole atmosphere of our conversation changed from one of relaxed good humour to one more like the oral examination for the doctor’s degree in mathematics.” Von Neumann immediately grasped the significance and became a consultant to the project.

The “First Draft” Controversy

Von Neumann wrote extensive notes about the design of EDVAC, ENIAC’s successor. Goldstine typed these up into the 101-page “First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC” and distributed it with von Neumann as the sole author, removing any reference to Eckert or Mauchly. This decision – whether deliberate or careless – gave von Neumann sole credit for the stored-program concept and embittered Eckert and Mauchly for decades.

IAS Computer Project (1946–1957)

  • 1945: Left the Army.
  • 1946–1957: Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, where he served as assistant director, and later director (after 1954), of the IAS computer project. He collaborated with von Neumann on a series of scientific papers on numerical methods and computing.

IBM Career (1958–1985)

  • 1958: Joined IBM.
  • 1969: Appointed IBM Fellow, the company’s most prestigious technical honor, and founding director of the Mathematical Sciences Department at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center.

Historical Work: The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann

  • 1972: Published The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann (Princeton University Press), a landmark history of computing that established von Neumann’s central role in the narrative. Won the Award in Science from Phi Beta Kappa in 1973. The book remains a standard reference, though critics note it naturally reflects Goldstine’s perspective and emphasizes von Neumann’s contributions.

Later Career

  • 1985–1997: Executive director of the American Philosophical Society.

Personal Life

  • First marriage: Adele Katz (1941). She was a mathematician, ENIAC programmer, and author of the ENIAC technical manual. They had two children (born 1952 and 1959). Adele died of cancer in November 1964 at age 43.
  • Second marriage: Ellen Watson (1966).

Awards and Honors

  • IEEE Computer Society Pioneer Award (1980)
  • National Medal of Science (1985)
  • Information Processing Hall of Fame (1985)
  • Member, National Academy of Sciences
  • Member, American Philosophical Society

Connections to Others in the Story

  • Adele Goldstine: First wife; wrote the ENIAC manual and trained the six women programmers.
  • John von Neumann: The train-platform meeting in 1944 brought von Neumann into computing. Goldstine served as his right hand on the IAS computer project for over a decade. Goldstine’s book cemented von Neumann’s place in computing history.
  • John Mauchly: Together they secured Army funding for ENIAC. The “First Draft” distribution created lasting friction.
  • J. Presper Eckert: ENIAC’s chief engineer; angered by the “First Draft” attribution.
  • Julian Bigelow: Chief engineer of the IAS machine; worked alongside Goldstine at IAS.

Sources