Cuthbert Hurd

Cuthbert Corwin Hurd (April 5, 1911 – May 22, 1996) was an American computer scientist and entrepreneur, who was instrumental in helping the International Business Machines Corporation develop its first general-purpose computers.

Hurd was born April 5, 1911, in Estherville, Iowa. He received his B.A. in mathematics from Drake University in 1932, his M.S. in mathematics from Iowa State College in 1934, and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Illinois in 1936. Waldemar Joseph Trjitzinsky was his advisor, and dissertation was Asymptotic theory of linear differential equations singular in the variable of differentiation and in a parameter. He did post-doctorate work at Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was assistant professor at Michigan State University from 1936 to 1942.

During World War II Hurd taught at the US Coast Guard Academy with the rank of Lieutenant Commander, and co-authored the textbook for teaching Mathematics to mariners. From 1945 to 1947 he was dean of Allegheny College. In 1947 he moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he worked for Union Carbide as mathematician at the United States Atomic Energy Commission facility Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He taught and later served as a technical research head under Alston Scott Householder. At Oak Ridge he supervised the installation of an IBM 602 calculating punched card machine to automate the tracking of material in the facility, and saw the potential for automating the massive amounts of computation needed for nuclear Physics research. In February 1948 he was invited to the dedication of the IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC), a custom-built machine in New York City. He asked if the SSEC could be used for calculations being done at Oak Ridge for the NEPA project to power an airplane with a nuclear reactor, but the demands for the SSEC produced a backlog. In the meanwhile, he requested that the first IBM 604 calculating card punch be delivered to Oak Ridge. It was, but the calculations remained slow with the limited electronics in the 604.

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