Access to computers

Abstract

In one of Duncan Dowson’s talks on the early attempts to solve the elastohydrodynamic lubrication problem, he commented that progress only became possible when he and Gordon Higginson were granted private access to the University computer at weekends. And how these words brought back memories! For John Tripp and I could never have solved our numerical problem without the courtesy of the Norwalk State Technical College allowing us access to its computer out of term. That was in 1964. In this century, such a story is hard to believe, when every researcher has on his own desk, for his own use, a computer more powerful than either of the two referred to above. It seems worth recalling how computing has changed in my scientific lifetime.