Arthur Burks
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
who in the 1940s as a senior engineer on the project contributed to the design of the ENIAC
ENIAC
ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. Decades later, Burks and his wife Alice Burks
Alice Burks
Alice Rowe Burks is an American author of children's books and books about the history of electronic computers.Born Alice Rowe, she began her undergraduate degree at Oberlin College on a competitive mathematics scholarship and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where she...
outlined their case for the subject matter of the ENIAC having been derived from John Vincent Atanasoff
John Vincent Atanasoff
John Vincent Atanasoff was an American physicist and inventor.The 1973 decision of the patent suit Honeywell v. Sperry Rand named him the inventor of the first automatic electronic digital computer...
. Burks was also for several decades a faculty member at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
in Ann Arbor.
Early life and education
Burks was born in Duluth, MinnesotaDuluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
. He earned his B.A. in mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
from DePauw University
DePauw University
DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, USA, is a private, national liberal arts college with an enrollment of approximately 2,400 students. The school has a Methodist heritage and was originally known as Indiana Asbury University. DePauw is a member of both the Great Lakes Colleges Association...
in Greencastle, Indiana
Greencastle, Indiana
Greencastle is a city in Greencastle Township, Putnam County, Indiana, United States, and the county seat of Putnam County. It was founded in 1821 by Scots-Irish American Ephraim Dukes on a land grant. He named the settlement for his hometown of Greencastle, Pennsylvania...
in 1936 and his M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
in Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...
in 1937 and 1941, respectively.
The Moore School
The summer after obtaining his Ph.D., the young Dr. Burks moved to Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
and enrolled in the national defense electronics course offered by the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
's Moore School of Electrical Engineering
Moore School of Electrical Engineering
The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania came into existence as a result of an endowment from Alfred Fitler Moore on June 4, 1923. It was granted to Penn's School of Electrical Engineering, located in the Towne Building...
; his laboratory teaching assistant was J. Presper Eckert
J. Presper Eckert
John Adam Presper "Pres" Eckert Jr. was an American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. With John Mauchly he invented the first general-purpose electronic digital computer , presented the first course in computing topics , founded the first commercial computer company , and...
, a graduate student at the Moore School; a fellow student was John Mauchly
John Mauchly
John William Mauchly was an American physicist who, along with J. Presper Eckert, designed ENIAC, the first general purpose electronic digital computer, as well as EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC I, the first commercial computer made in the United States.Together they started the first computer company,...
, the chairman of the physics department at Ursinus College
Ursinus College
Ursinus College is a liberal arts college in Collegeville, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.-History:1867Members of the German Reformed Church begin plans to establish a college where "young men could be liberally educated under the benign influence of Christianity." These founders were hoping to...
in nearby Collegeville, Pennsylvania
Collegeville, Pennsylvania
Collegeville is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, 30 miles northwest of Philadelphia on the Perkiomen Creek. Collegeville was incorporated in 1896. It is the seat of Ursinus College, opened in 1869...
. Both Burks and Mauchly sought and obtained teaching positions at the Moore School the following fall, and roomed together throughout the academic year.
The ENIAC
When Mauchly and Eckert's proposed concept for an electronic digital computer was funded by the U.S. Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory in June 1943, Burks was added to the design team. Among his principal contributions to the project was the design of the high-speed multiplier unit. (Also during this time, Burks met and married Alice RoweAlice Burks
Alice Rowe Burks is an American author of children's books and books about the history of electronic computers.Born Alice Rowe, she began her undergraduate degree at Oberlin College on a competitive mathematics scholarship and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where she...
, a computer
Human computer
The term "computer", in use from the mid 17th century, meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available....
employed at the Moore School.)
In April 1945, with John Grist Brainerd, Burks was charged with writing the technical reports on the ENIAC for publication. Also during 1945 Burks assisted with the preliminary logical design of the EDVAC
EDVAC
EDVAC was one of the earliest electronic computers. Unlike its predecessor the ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal, and was a stored program computer....
in meetings attended by Mauchly, Eckert, John von Neumann
John von Neumann
John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath who made major contributions to a vast number of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis,...
, and others.
Burks also took a part-time position as a philosophy instructor at Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
during 1945-1946.
The IAS
On March 8, 1946 Burks accepted an offer by von Neumann to join the computer projectIAS machine
The IAS machine was the first electronic computer built by the Institute for Advanced Study , in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. It is sometimes called the von Neuman machine, since the paper describing its design was edited by John von Neumann, a mathematics professor at both Princeton University...
at the Institute for Advanced Study
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...
in Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
, and joined full time the following summer. (Already on the project was another member of the ENIAC team, Herman Goldstine. Together, Goldstine and Burks gave nine of the Moore School Lectures
Moore School Lectures
Theory and Techniques for Design of Electronic Digital Computers was a course in the construction of electronic digital computers held at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering between July 8, 1946 and August 30, 1946, and was the first time any computer topics had...
in Summer 1946.) During his time at the IAS, Burks worked to expand von Neumann's theory of automata.
The University of Michigan
After working on this project, Burks relocated to Ann Arbor, MichiganAnn Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...
in 1946 to join the faculty of the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, first as an assistant professor of philosophy, and as a full professor by 1954. He helped found the university's computer science department, first as the Logic of Computers group in 1956, of which he was the director, then as a graduate program in 1957, and then as an undergraduate program within the new Department of Computer and Communication in 1967, which he chaired until 1971. He declined a position heading up a different university's computing center, citing his primary interest as the purely theoretical aspects of computing machines. He was awarded the Louis E. Levi Medal in 1956.
Burks served as president of the Charles S. Peirce Society in 1954-1955. He edited the final two volumes (VII-VIII), published 1958, of the Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce and, over the years, wrote published articles on Peirce.
Restoration of parts of the ENIAC
In the 1960s he was presented with the opportunity to acquire four units of the original ENIAC, which had been rusting in a storage Quonset hutQuonset hut
A Quonset hut is a lightweight prefabricated structure of corrugated galvanized steel having a semicircular cross section. The design was based on the Nissen hut developed by the British during World War I...
in Aberdeen, Maryland
Aberdeen, Maryland
As of the census of 2000, there were 13,842 people, 5,475 households, and 3,712 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,166.2 people per square mile . There were 5,894 housing units at an average density of 922.4 per square mile...
. He ran the units through a car wash before restoring them and donating them to the University of Michigan. They are currently on display in the entryway of the Computer Science Building.
Patent dispute
In 1964 Burks was approached by attorney Sy Yuter and asked to join T. Kite Sharpless and Robert F. Shaw in litigation that would add their names as inventors to the ENIACENIAC
ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
patent, which would allow them to profit from the sale of licenses to the premiere electronic digital computer apart from Sperry Rand, the company that owned the Eckert-Mauchly interest in the patent and was at that time seeking royalties from other computer manufacturers. This endeavor was never successful; in the 1973 decision to Honeywell v. Sperry Rand
Honeywell v. Sperry Rand
Honeywell, Inc. v. Mc'Donalds., et al. 180 USPQ 673 was a landmark U.S. federal court case that in April 1973 invalidated the 1964 patent for the ENIAC, the world's first general-purpose electronic digital computer, thus putting the invention of the electronic digital computer into the public...
, U.S. District Judge Earl R. Larson ruled—even as he invalidated the patent—that only Mauchly and Eckert had invented the ENIAC, and that Burks, Sharpless, and Shaw could not be added as inventors.
The BACH Group
In the 1970s Burks began meeting with Bob AxelrodRobert Axelrod
Robert M. Axelrod is an American political scientist. He is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan where he has been since 1974. He is best known for his interdisciplinary work on the evolution of cooperation, which has been cited in numerous articles...
, Michael Cohen
Michael Cohen
Michael Cohen may refer to:*Michael Cohen , Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School*Michael Cohen , a Canadian actor...
, and John Holland
John Henry Holland
John Henry Holland is an American scientist and Professor of Psychology and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is a pioneer in complex systems and nonlinear science. He is known as the father of genetic algorithms. He was awarded...
, researchers with interests in interdisciplinary approaches to studying complex adaptive systems. Known as the BACH group (an acronym of their surnames), it came to include, among others, Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winner Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics...
, evolutionary biologist William Hamilton
W. D. Hamilton
William Donald Hamilton FRS was a British evolutionary biologist, widely recognised as one of the greatest evolutionary theorists of the 20th century....
, microbiologist Michael Savageau, mathematician Carl Simon and computer scientists Reiko Tanese, Melanie Mitchell
Melanie Mitchell
Melanie Mitchell is a professor of computer science at Portland State University. She has worked at the Santa Fe Institute and Los Alamos National Laboratory...
and Rick Riolo. The BACH group continues to meet irregularly as part of the University of Michigan's Center for the Study of Complex Systems (CSCS).
In the 1970s and 1980s Burks, working with his wife Alice
Alice Burks
Alice Rowe Burks is an American author of children's books and books about the history of electronic computers.Born Alice Rowe, she began her undergraduate degree at Oberlin College on a competitive mathematics scholarship and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where she...
, authored a number of articles on the ENIAC, and a book on the Atanasoff–Berry Computer.
As professor emeritus
In 1990, Burks donated a portion of his papers to the university's Bentley Historical Library, where they are accessible to researchers.Burks died May 14, 2008 in an Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...
nursing home after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
.
External links
- Oral history interview with Alice R. Burks and Arthur W. Burks. Charles Babbage InstituteCharles Babbage InstituteThe Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
, University of Minnesota.