Kenneth E. Iverson
| Kenneth Eugene Iverson | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 17, 1920 Camrose, Alberta, Canada |
| Died | October 19, 2004 (aged 83) Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Citizenship | Canadian |
| Fields |
Mathematics Computer Science |
| Institutions |
Harvard University IBM I. P. Sharp Associates Jsoftware Inc. |
| Alma mater |
Queen's University Harvard University |
| Thesis | Machine Solutions of Linear Differential Equations — Applications to a Dynamic Economic Model (1954) |
| Doctoral advisor |
Howard Aiken Wassily Leontief |
| Known for | Programming languages: APL, J |
| Notable awards |
IBM Fellow Harry H. Goode Memorial Award Turing Award Computer Pioneer Award |
Kenneth Eugene Iverson (17 December 1920 – 19 October 2004) was a Canadian computer scientist noted for the development of the APL programming language. He was honored with the Turing Award in 1979 "for his pioneering effort in programming languages and mathematical notation resulting in what the computing field now knows as APL; for his contributions to the implementation of interactive systems, to educational uses of APL, and to programming language theory and practice".
Ken Iverson was born on December 17, 1920 near Camrose, a town in central Alberta, Canada. His parents were farmers who came to Alberta from North Dakota; his ancestors came from Trondheim, Norway.
During World War II, he served first in the Canadian Army and then in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He received a B.A. degree from Queen's University and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. In his career, he worked for Harvard, IBM, I. P. Sharp Associates, and Jsoftware Inc. (née Iverson Software Inc.).
Iverson suffered a stroke while working at the computer on a new J lab on 16 October 2004, and died on 19 October 2004 at the age of 83.
Iverson started school on 1 April 1926 in a one-room school, initially in Grade 1, promoted to Grade 2 after 3 months and to Grade 4 by the end of June 1927. He left school after Grade 9 because it was the depths of the Depression and there was work to do on the family farm, and because he thought further schooling only led to becoming a schoolteacher and he had no desire to become one. At age 17, while still out of school, he enrolled in a correspondence course on radios with De Forest Training in Chicago, and learned calculus by self-study from a textbook. During World War II, while serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force, he took correspondence courses toward a high school diploma.
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