Alice Burks facts for kids
Alice Burks (born Alice Rowe, August 20, 1920 – November 21, 2017) was an American writer. She wrote books for children and also books about the history of electronic computers. These are the early machines that led to the computers we use today.
Early Life and Education
Alice Rowe was born in East Cleveland, Ohio, in 1920. She was very good at math. She started college at Oberlin College with a special scholarship for mathematics. Later, she moved to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In 1944, she earned her degree in mathematics there.
While studying, Alice worked as a "human computer" at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. This meant she did complex math calculations by hand for engineers and scientists.
Family and Early Career
Alice stopped working full-time after she married Dr. Arthur Burks. Arthur was a math expert and a lecturer at the Moore School. He was also one of the main engineers who helped build the ENIAC. The ENIAC was the world's first general-purpose electronic digital computer. It was built at the Moore School between 1943 and 1946. Even though many women worked as "human computers" at the Moore School, Alice did not work directly with the ENIAC machine itself.
In 1946, Alice and Arthur moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Arthur joined the University of Michigan and helped start their computer science department. Alice went back to school too. In 1957, she earned a master's degree in educational psychology from the University of Michigan.
Discovering Computer History
Starting in the 1970s, Alice and Arthur Burks became strong supporters of John Vincent Atanasoff. He was a physics professor at Iowa State College. A court case had decided that Atanasoff invented the first electronic digital computer. This machine was called the Atanasoff–Berry Computer. The court also ruled that the ideas for the ENIAC came from Atanasoff's work.
Alice Burks wrote articles and two books about this. One book she wrote with her husband, Arthur. In her writings, she wanted to show why the judge's decision was correct. She highlighted facts and evidence from the court case. This led to a big disagreement between the Burkses and those who supported the ENIAC inventors, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.
Later Years
Alice Burks lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for many years. She helped her husband, Arthur, write his life story and get his papers ready to give to the university. Arthur passed away on May 14, 2008. Alice Burks died in November 2017 when she was 97 years old.
