Adriaan van Wijngaarden
Encyclopedia
Adriaan van Wijngaarden (2 November 1916 – 7 February 1987) was an important 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....

 and computer scientist
Computer scientist
A computer scientist is a scientist who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....

 who is considered by many to have been the founding father of informatica (computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

) in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. Even though he was trained as an engineer, van Wijngaarden would emphasize and promote the mathematical aspects of computing, first in numerical analysis
Numerical analysis
Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation for the problems of mathematical analysis ....

, then in programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....

s and finally in design principles of programming languages.

His education was in mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...

, for which he received a degree from Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology , also known as TU Delft, is the largest and oldest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands...

 in 1939. He then studied for a doctorate in hydrodynamics, but then abandoned the area. He joined the Nationaal Luchtvaartlaboratorium
National Aerospace Laboratory
The Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium is the National Aerospace Laboratory of the Netherlands and is one of the Major Technological Institutes of the country. These institutes perform a large part of the applied research in the Netherlands, each within its own specific field of technology...

 in 1945 and went with a group to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 the following year to learn about new technologies that had been developed there during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

Van Wijngaarden was intrigued by the new idea of automatic computing
Computing
Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...

, and on 1 January 1947 he became the head of the Computing Department of the brand-new Mathematisch Centrum (MC) in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

. He then made further visits to England and the United States, gathering ideas for the construction of the first Dutch computer, the ARRA
ARRA (computer)
The ARRA was the first Dutch computer, and was built from relays for the Dutch Mathematical Centre , which later became the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica .It was designed and built by Carel Scholten and Bram Loopstra, and was finished in 1952...

, an electromechanical construction first demonstrated in 1952. In that same year, van Wijngaarden hired Edsger Dijkstra
Edsger Dijkstra
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra ; ) was a Dutch computer scientist. He received the 1972 Turing Award for fundamental contributions to developing programming languages, and was the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin from 1984 until 2000.Shortly before his...

, and they worked on software for the ARRA.

While visiting Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 in 1958, van Wijngaarden was seriously injured in an automobile accident in which his wife was killed. After he recovered, he focused more on programming language research, and was one of the designers of the original ALGOL
ALGOL
ALGOL is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in the mid 1950s which greatly influenced many other languages and became the de facto way algorithms were described in textbooks and academic works for almost the next 30 years...

, and later ALGOL 68
ALGOL 68
ALGOL 68 isan imperative computerprogramming language that was conceived as a successor to theALGOL 60 programming language, designed with the goal of a...

, for which he developed a two-level type of grammar that came be known as van Wijngaarden grammar
Van Wijngaarden grammar
In computer science, a Van Wijngaarden grammar is a two-level grammar which provides a technique to define potentially infinite context-free grammars in a finite number of rules...

s. He became the director of the MC in 1961, and remained in that post for the next twenty years.

Van Wijngaarden Awards

Awarded every 5 years from the 60th anniversary of Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica in 2006. Consists of a bronze sculpture.
  • 2006: Computer scientist Nancy Lynch
    Nancy Lynch
    Nancy Ann Lynch is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the NEC Professor of Software Science and Engineering in the EECS department and heads the Theory of Distributed Systems research group at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.She is the...

     and mathematician-magician Persi Diaconis
    Persi Diaconis
    Persi Warren Diaconis is an American mathematician and former professional magician. He is the Mary V. Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at Stanford University....

    .
  • 2011: Computer scientist Éva Tardos
    Éva Tardos
    Éva Tardos is a Hungarian mathematician, winner of the Fulkerson Prize , and professor of Computer Science at Cornell University.Research Interests:...

     and numerical mathematician John C. Butcher
    John C. Butcher
    John Charles Butcher is a mathematician who specialises in numerical methods for the solution of ordinary differential equations. Butcher works on multistage methods for initial value problems, such as Runge-Kutta and general linear methods...

    .

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK