Harry L. Nelson

Harry Lewis Nelson (born January 8, 1932) is an American mathematician and computer programmer. He was a member of the team that won the World Computer Chess Championship in 1983 and 1986, and was a co-discoverer of the 27th Mersenne prime in 1979 (at the time, the largest known prime number). He also served as editor of the Journal of Recreational Mathematics for five years. Most of his professional career was spent at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where he worked with some of the earliest supercomputers. He was particularly noted as one of the world's foremost experts in writing optimized assembly language routines for the Cray-1 and Cray X-MP computers. Nelson has had a lifelong interest in puzzles of all types, and since his retirement in 1991 he has devoted his time to his own MiniMax Game Company, a small venture that helps puzzle inventors to develop and market their products.

In 1994, Nelson donated his correspondence from his days as editor of the Journal of Recreational Mathematics to the University of Calgary Library as part of the Eugène Strens Recreational Mathematics Special Collection.

Nelson was born on January 8, 1932, in Topeka, Kansas, the third of four children. He attended local schools and was active in the Boy Scouts, earning the rank of Eagle Scout. Nelson attended Harvard University as a freshman, but then had to drop out for financial reasons. He attended the University of Kansas as a sophomore, but was able to return to Harvard for his junior and senior years, receiving a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Harvard in 1953. In 1952, just before the start of his senior year, he married his high school sweetheart, Claire (née Rachael Claire Ensign). After graduating, he was inducted into the U.S. Army, but was never deployed overseas. He was honorably discharged in 1955, having attained the rank of sergeant. He enrolled in graduate studies at the University of Kansas, earning a master's degree in mathematics in 1957. It was during this period that he became fascinated by the then-new programmable digital computer. Nelson worked towards a Ph.D. until 1959, but the combination of his GI Bill educational benefits running out, needing to support a wife and three children, and the mathematics department rejecting his proposal to do his thesis on computers convinced him to leave the university without completing his Ph.D., and to get a job.

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