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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

Kathy Kleiman: The six women who programmed the first modern computer

Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

Bobi NYC

Science, Society & Culture, Comedy

4.83.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 January 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Built during WWII, the world’s first electronic computer, the ENIAC, was an engineering marvel. But at 80 ft long and 6 ft tall it was mute until it was brought to life by six young women mathematicians who figured out how to program it.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This program is sponsored by the Covley Foundation based in Los Angeles, California.

0:06.8

The Covley Foundation is dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of humanity.

0:12.0

I'm Alan Olga, and this is Clear In Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

0:24.8

I found an incredible picture of the NEAC taken six months after the war ends, and it

0:32.8

has people dwarfed in the picture.

0:34.9

And there were six people in the picture, and two of them were women.

0:39.0

And I thought, wait a second, who were the women?

0:41.9

And so I looked and I found more pictures of NEAC, and there were more women.

0:45.5

The 40th anniversary of the NEAC was coming up, and at the 40th anniversary, I found a

0:49.8

cluster of women talking about programming the NEAC, and when they introduced themselves,

0:55.2

they began to tell me their stories, and I was fascinated.

0:58.6

I was captivated.

1:00.3

That's Kathy Climon.

1:02.3

The women she met that day were among a group of six women who programmed the first ever

1:07.6

electronic computer.

1:10.0

And that made way for the whole field of computer programming that's changed our world.

1:15.2

But until Kathy Climon rescued those six women from obscurity, it was as though they had

1:20.3

never existed.

1:23.1

This is an amazing story you have to tell.

1:25.8

Six women who changed the lives of every one of us, and yet they were totally erased

1:31.8

from history, and you found them.

1:34.0

Thank you for doing that.

...

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