John G. Kemeny facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
John George Kemeny
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| 13th President of Dartmouth College | |
| In office 1970–1981 |
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| Preceded by | John Sloan Dickey |
| Succeeded by | David T. McLaughlin |
| Personal details | |
| Born | May 31, 1926 Budapest, Hungary |
| Died | December 26, 1992 (aged 66) Hanover, New Hampshire, United States |
| Education | Princeton University (A.B., Ph.D.) |
| Awards | Computer Pioneer Award (1985) |
John George Kemeny (born Kemény János György; May 31, 1926 – December 26, 1992) was a smart Hungarian-born American mathematician and computer scientist. He is best known for helping create the BASIC programming language in 1964 with Thomas E. Kurtz.
Kemeny was the 13th President of Dartmouth College from 1970 to 1981. He was a leader in using computers to help college students learn. He also led a special group that looked into the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.
Contents
Early Life and Education
John Kemeny was born in Budapest, Hungary, into a Jewish family. He went to a private primary school there. In 1940, his family moved to the United States. They left Hungary because new laws against Jewish people were being made. Sadly, his grandfather, aunt, and uncle stayed behind and died in the Holocaust.
His family settled in New York City. John went to George Washington High School and graduated at the top of his class. In 1943, he started studying mathematics and philosophy at Princeton University.
During his studies, he took a year off to work on the Manhattan Project. This was a secret project to build the first atomic bomb. He worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory with famous scientists like Richard Feynman and John von Neumann.
After returning to Princeton, Kemeny earned his first degree in mathematics in 1946. He then continued his studies and received his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1949. While he was a graduate student, he also worked as a math assistant for Albert Einstein!
Career Highlights
In 1953, when he was just 27, Kemeny became a professor in the Mathematics Department at Dartmouth College. Two years later, he became the head of the department. He held this job until 1967.
Kemeny helped create new math courses called "Finite Mathematics." He wrote books about this topic with other professors. These books helped students in fields like biology and social sciences learn important math skills. He also wrote books about Markov chains, which are used to study things that change over time.
BASIC and Computers for Everyone
Kemeny and Kurtz were pioneers in making computers easy for everyone to use. They believed that ordinary people should be able to work with computers. In 1964, they created the BASIC programming language. BASIC was designed to be simple and easy to learn.
In 1974, Kemeny and Kurtz received an award for their work on BASIC and "time-sharing." Time-sharing meant that many people could use the same computer at the same time. BASIC became very popular. It was the main language used for software on early personal computers like the Apple II and IBM PCs in the 1980s.
Leading Dartmouth College
Kemeny was the president of Dartmouth College from 1970 to 1981. Even as president, he continued to teach classes and do his own research.
During his time as president, Dartmouth made some big changes:
- In 1972, Dartmouth started accepting women students. Before that, it was only for men.
- He started the "Dartmouth Plan," which allowed the college to operate year-round. This meant more students could attend without needing more buildings.
- Dartmouth worked harder to welcome and support students from minority groups.
- He made sure that Dartmouth continued its original goal of educating American Indians.
- Kemeny strongly believed that knowing how to use computers was as important as knowing how to read. He made Dartmouth a leader in helping students use computers.
In 1982, after his time as president, he went back to teaching full-time. In 1983, Kemeny and Kurtz started a company called True BASIC, Inc. They wanted to sell an updated version of the BASIC language.
Death
John Kemeny passed away on December 26, 1992, at the age of 66. He died from heart failure in Lebanon, New Hampshire. He lived near the Dartmouth Campus in Etna.
See also
- Kemeny–Young method
- Kemeny's constant
- The Martians (scientists)
- New Hampshire Historical Marker No. 261: BASIC: The First User-Friendly Computer Programming Language
