Herbert Reuben John Grosch (September 13, 1918 – January 18, 2010)[1] was an early
computer scientist, perhaps best known for
Grosch's law, which he formulated in 1950. Grosch's Law is an
aphorism that states "economy is as the square root of the speed."
Grosch moved to the
United States where he received his B.S. and PhD in astronomy from the
University of Michigan in 1942. In 1945, he was hired by
IBM to do backup calculations for the
Manhattan Project working at
Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory at
Columbia University. According to an IBM history, he had been previously employed as an optical engineer in defense industry and was eager to return to research.[3] In 1951, he went on to work on
Project Whirlwind at
MIT, and on other early computer projects at
General Electric. Back at IBM, he served as their first space program manager in 1958-1959.
Grosch received the
Association for Computing Machinery Fellows Award in 1995, and the citation that accompanied it read, "A computer pioneer who managed important space and technology projects, Grosch is respected for discovering and describing the relationship between speed and cost of computers."
He was the second scientist hired by
IBM (after
Wallace J. Eckert) and the first employee at that company with facial hair, at a time when beards were prohibited by IBM.
On Grosch's religious views, he was an atheist.[4]
Elements and Ephemeris of Delaporte Object 1936 CA, with Maxwell, Allan D, Publications of the Observatory of the University of Michigan, Vol.6, No.11 (1937).
Integration Orbit and Mean Elements of Jupiter's Eighth Satellite, Ph. D. dissertation, University of Michigan (April 1942).
Positions of Pluto, with J.E. Willis, Astronomical Journal, Vol.50, No.14 (June 1942), pp. 14–15.
Ray Tracing on IBM Punched Card Equipment, Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol.35, 803A (1945).
Bibliography on the Use of IBM Machines in Scientific Research, Statistics, and Education, IBM (1945).
Harmonic Analysis by the Use of Progressive Digiting, Proceedings of the 1946 Research Forum, IBM (1946).
The Orbit of the Eighth Satellite of Jupiter, Astronomical Journal, Vol.53, No.180 (1948) (a condensed published form of Grosch's 1942 Ph. D. thesis).
Ray Tracing with the IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator, Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol.39, 1059A (1949).
Multiplication of Small Matrices, IBM, New York (1 Jun 1949).
Proceedings of the 1948 Scientific Computation Forum (ed.), IBM (1950).
The Use of Optimum Interval Mathematical Tables, Proceedings of the 1948 Scientific Computation Forum, IBM (1950).
Bibliography on Chebyshev Polynomials and Their Use as Optimum Approximation Functions, Proeceedings of the 1949 Scientific Computation Seminar, IBM (1951).
A New Level of Instruction in Celestial Mechanics, Astronomical Journal, Vol.63 (1958).