Nanoseconds Associated with Grace Hopper
Nanoseconds Associated with Grace Hopper
- Description
- This bundle consists of about one hundred pieces of plastic-coated wire, each about 30 cm (11.8 in) long. Each piece of wire represents the distance an electrical signal travels in a nanosecond, one billionth of a second. Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992), a mathematician who became a naval officer and computer scientist during World War II, started distributing these wire "nanoseconds" in the late 1960s in order to demonstrate how designing smaller components would produce faster computers.
- The "nanoseconds" in this bundle were among those Hopper brought with her to hand out to Smithsonian docents at a March 1985 lecture at NMAH. Later, as components shrank and computer speeds increased, Hopper used grains of pepper to represent the distance electricity traveled in a picosecond, one trillionth of a second (one thousandth of a nanosecond).
- Reference: Kathleen Broome Williams, Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Object Name
- nanosecond
- nanoseconds
- date made
- 1985
- distributor
- Hopper, Grace Murray
- Physical Description
- plastic (overall material)
- metal (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 1 cm x 32 cm x 8 cm; 13/32 in x 12 19/32 in x 3 5/32 in
- ID Number
- 1985.3088.01
- catalog number
- 1985.3088.01
- nonaccession number
- 1985.3088
- subject
- Mathematics
- Women's History
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Mathematics
- Women Mathematicians
- Computers & Business Machines
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Comments
Frank Dana
Thu, 2022-06-02 08:52
Gus Palacios
Fri, 2021-10-29 09:02
Kathleen Kerndt
Thu, 2021-05-20 15:35
Mary Pickett
Wed, 2021-03-10 08:47
David Parham
Tue, 2019-09-10 08:58
Treon Verdery
Thu, 2016-01-21 20:42
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Jeff Thompson
Fri, 2022-02-04 13:36