• ? -
    1963
    (d.)

Bio/Description

Writer of the code used on the MANIAC machine developed by John Von Neumann and Julian Bigelow at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Klára Dán Von Neumann was also a pioneer computer programmer. She was also involved in the design of new controls for ENIAC and taught early weather scientists how to program. She was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1911, to Károly — Karl Dán and Camila Stadler.

She wrote the preface to John von Neumann's posthumously published, influential Silliman Lectures, later edited and published by Yale University Press as "The Computer and the Brain". Von Neumann features significantly in computing historian George Dyson's book, Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe, ISBN 978-0375422775.

It was noted that a Monte Carlo problem was coded, with Klári Von Neumann's assistance, as part of a hand-computed rehearsal conducted at Los Alamos in advance of running the problem on the ENIAC, then moved from the Moore School in Philadelphia to the Aberdeen Proving Ground.

She was married four times, including to John Von Neumann in 1938, and to Carl Eckart in 1958. She reportedly took her own life in 1963.

  • Date of Death:

    1963
  • Gender:

    Female
  • Noted For:

    Writer of the code used on the MANIAC machine developed by her husband, John Von Neumann and Julian Bigelow at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
  • Category of Achievement:

  • More Info: