A Canadian Computer Scientist – 英会話・英語 アミック
2018/05/08
Beatrice Helen Worsley was destined for greatness. An academic star from a young age, Beatrice won many awards in math and science. Her scholastic prowess eventually won her multiple scholarships to Trinity College, a part of the University of Toronto. She majored in mathematics and physics, eventually graduating in 1944. Beatrice held the distinction of having the highest marks in every class in every year she attended Trinity College.
After graduation, she enlisted in the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRENS), where she studied harbor defenses and torpedo guidance. Worsley was eventually promoted to lieutenant before ultimately leaving the military in 1946. She is known for spending 150 days at sea working as a minesweeper, a record which stands to this day.
After her time in the military, she completed a one-year Master’s program at MIT. Her thesis detailed nearly every computing machine in existence at the time and is considered one of the most detailed works in early computing.
Her time at MIT made her realize that computers were the way of the future. Eventually, Canada developed a computing industry beginning with the University of Toronto. Worsley applied to provide computational support for Atomic Energy of Canada. While working at Cambridge, Worsley built a differential analyzing machine and helped write a program to calculate squares. She later applied for a doctorate at the University of Toronto, writing her dissertation in part on her differential analyzing machine as well as Turing machines. Her dissertation is considered to be the first written about modern computers and earned her a PhD in computing. Beatrice then began teaching at the University of Toronto.
Unfortunately, Worsley’s genius was not celebrated during her lifetime. She was repeated passed over for promotions while working at the University of Toronto. She received far less recognition than her peers in the field of computational sciences. In 1972, Beatrice Worsley suffered a fatal heart attack at the young age of 50. She was finally recognized posthumously for her service in computation with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Association of Computer Science.
