John George Kemeny (Kemény János) (May 31, 1926–December 26, 1992), U.S. computer scientist and educator best known for co-developing the BASIC programming language in 1964 with Thomas Eugene Kurtz. He also served as the 13th President of Dartmouth College 1970–1981 and pioneered the use of computers in college education. Kemeny chaired the presidential commission that investigated the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. May 31 is the 151st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (152nd in leap years), with 214 days remaining. ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... December 26 is the 360th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, 361st in leap years. ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... Motto: E pluribus unum (1789 to 1956) (Latin: Out of Many, One) In God We Trust (1956 to present) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City Official language(s) None at federal level; English de facto Government • President • Vice President Federal Republic George... Computer science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ... BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of high-level programming languages. ... 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1964 calendar). ... Thomas Eugene Kurtz (born 1928), U.S. computer scientist; co-developed the BASIC programming language in 1963/64, together with John George Kemeny. ... Dartmouth College is a private academic institution in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station consists of two nuclear reactors, each with its own containment building and cooling towers. ... This page refers to the year 1979. ...

John Kemeny attended primary school in Budapest, emigrating to the United States in 1940. Kemeny's family settled in New York City where he attended high school. Kemeny entered Princeton University where he studied mathematics and philosophy, but he took a year off during his studies to work on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos. His boss there was Richard Feynman. He also worked there with John von Neumann. Returning to Princeton, Kemeny graduated with his B.A. in 1947, then worked for his doctorate under Alonzo Church. Kemeny was awarded his doctorate in 1949 for a dissertation entitled "Type-Theory vs. Set-Theory". Nickname: Paris of the East, Pearl of the Danubeor Queen of the Danube Official website: www. ... Princeton University is a coeducational private university located on an extensive campus in and around suburban Princeton, New Jersey. ... The Manhattan Project resulted in the development of the first nuclear weapons, and the first-ever nuclear detonation at the Trinity test of July 16, 1945. ... Los Alamos National Laboratory, aerial view from 1995. ... Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) (surname pronounced FINE-man; in IPA) was one of the most influential American physicists of the 20th century, expanding greatly on the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the quark theory, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium. ... John von Neumann in the 1940s. ... Alonzo Church (June 14, 1903 – August 11, 1995) was an American mathematician and logician who was responsible for some of the foundations of theoretical computer science. ... At the broadest level, type theory is the branch of mathematics and logic that concerns itself with classifying entities into collections called types. ... Set theory is the mathematical theory of sets, which represent collections of abstract objects. ...

Kemeny was appointed to the Dartmouth Mathematics Department in 1953. Two years later he became chairman of the Department, and held this post until 1967. He was president of Dartmouth from 1970 to 1981. In 1982, he returned to full-time teaching but in fact, he continued teaching all the years he was president.

Kemeny and Kurtz pioneered the use of computers for "average people". After early experiments with the LGP-30, they invented the well-known BASIC programming language in 1964, as well as one of the world's first timesharing systems, the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS). The LGP-30, standing for Librascope General Precision, was an early off the shelf computer manufactured and sold by Royal Precision Electronic Computer Company. ... BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of high-level programming languages. ... The Dartmouth Timesharing System, or DTSS for short, was the first large-scale time-sharing system to be implemented successfully. ...

Dartmouth Presidency

If William Jewett Tucker can be said to have "refounded Dartmouth," then certainly it was John Kemeny who began the institution's "transformation." A Hungarian by birth, a Princetonian by education and an esteemed mathematician, his appointment was met with enthusiasm by the faculty but with skepticism by alumni, some of whom felt that he could not understand the Dartmouth experience. Yet he succeeded in realizing the ambitious goals of his presidency while teaching two courses a year, and never missing a class. William Jewett Tucker served as the 9th President of Dartmouth College, 1893-1909. ...

Reversing a 203-year tradition of single sex education, John Kemeny presided over the coeducation of Dartmouth in 1972. He also instituted the "Dartmouth Plan" of year-round operations, thereby allowing a significant increase in the size of the student body without a corresponding increase in the College's physical facilities. During his administration, Dartmouth became more proactive in recruiting and retaining minority students and revived its founding commitment to provide education for Native Americans. The co-inventor, with Thomas Kurtz, of the BASIC computer language, President Kemeny made Dartmouth a pioneer in student use of computers, equating computer literacy with reading literacy.

During what was, for most American colleges and universities, a tumultuous period of student protest, Dartmouth enjoyed a period of relative calm due in large part to John Kemeny's appeal to students and his practice of seeking consensus on vital college issues. Posted with permission from Dartmouth College

External links

• Dartmouth Wheelock Succession
• Bio at Bellevue C.C. site
• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson. John George Kemeny at the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.
• John George Kemeny at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Interview with Kemeny about his experience at Princeton

The MacTutor history of mathematics archive is a website hosted by University of St Andrews in Scotland. ... The Mathematics Genealogy Project is a web-based database that gives an academic genealogy based on dissertation supervision relations. ...