On 10 Oct 2012, at 16:47, David Ryskalczyk <d235j.1(a)gmail.com> wrote:
So I was digging around some time back, and noticed
these lines in the
*BSD "Computer" calendar file:
06/30 First advanced degree on computer related topic: to H. Karamanian,
Temple Univ., Phila, 1948, for symbolic differentiation on the ENIAC
...
Recently, I tried again and found this:
http://diamond.temple.edu/record=b1850797
In short, the name in calendar.computer is misspelled, and the date is
wrong too! The correct year is 1953, at least according to that
record. (I haven't looked at the actual thesis yet.)
Whether this is indeed the "First advanced degree on computer related
topic" is something I'm not sure about — a cursory search didn't turn
up any others that predate this one, but I didn't search very far.
If 1953 is correct then Dave Wheeler's PhD predates it by about two years:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/misc/obituaries/wheeler