Patterson Hume

James Nairn Patterson "Pat" Hume CM FRSC (17 March 1923 – 9 May 2013) was a Canadian professor and science educator who has been called "Canada's pioneer of computer programming".[1] He was a professor of Physics and of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, and he served as the second Master of Massey College from 1981 to 1988.

Patterson Hume
Born
James Nairn Patterson Hume

(1923-03-17)17 March 1923
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died9 May 2013(2013-05-09) (aged 90)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
NationalityCanadian
Occupation(s)physicist, computer scientist, university professor
Known forThe Nature of Things, Frames of Reference, Computer programming pioneer.[1]
SpousePatricia Anne (née Molyneux) Hume[2] (1922–2017; m. 1953)
ChildrenStephen, Philip, Harriet, Mark
AwardsMember of Order of Canada,[3] Edison Foundation Special Citation for best science education film 1962, Fellow of Royal Society of Canada,[4] Fellow of the ACM,[5] IFIP Silver Core Award,[6] Sandford Fleming Medal[7]
Academic background
EducationB.A. 1945, M.A. 1946, PhD 1949
Alma materUniversity of Toronto
Academic work
InstitutionsUniversity of Toronto, Massey College, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Patterson Hume
Master of Massey College
In office
1981–1988
Preceded byRobertson Davies
Succeeded byAnn Saddlemyer

Life and career

Hume received a B.A. in mathematics and physics in 1945, an M.A. in physics in 1946 and a PhD in physics in 1949 (theoretical atomic spectroscopy) from the University of Toronto. From 1946 to 1949 he taught returning soldiers mathematics at the University of Toronto campus in Ajax.[8] [9] He was an instructor in physics at Rutgers University in New Jersey between 1949 and 1950 before rejoining the University of Toronto as an assistant professor of physics.[10]

In 1953, Hume and Beatrice Worsley began development of Transcode, a new computer language for the Ferranti Mark 1 machine known as FERUT.[11]

In collaboration with his colleague Donald Ivey, he helped to steer the teaching of physics in a new direction through the use of educational television programs and movies. Starting in 1958 Hume and Ivey prepared and presented over one hundred television programs for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on various physics topics. Short films for the PSSC such as Frames of Reference and the CBC TV show The Nature of Things used humour and creative camerawork to make physics accessible to a wider range of students.[12] In 1958 with Calvin Gotlieb he published High-speed Data Processing,[13] the first book on using computers in business[14] which was "recognized by The Oxford English Dictionary in twelve computer-related entries: block, character, datum, generator, housekeeping, in-line, interpreter, keyboard, logical, loop, matrix and simulate".[15]

In 1964, with Calvin Gotlieb and Thomas Hull, he founded the Computer Science department at the University of Toronto.

With Ric Holt, he co-authored many computer programming textbooks, for SP/k, Fortran, Pascal, Turing and Java.[16]

Hume was the second Master of Massey College, Toronto[12] having been a Senior Fellow since 1973.

Upon his retirement, he was appointed Professor Emeritus in 1988.[10]

In 2002, he was inducted into the Canadian Information Productivity Awards (CIPA) Hall of Fame.[17][18] In 2006 he was awarded an Honorary D.Sc. from Queen's University School of Computing.[19]

He was an active member of The Arts and Letters Club of Toronto and for many years collaborated with Jack Yokom[20] to produce the Annual Spring Review.

He died on 9 May 2013.[21]

In 2014 Hume was given a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Association of Computer Science including for "the world's first long-distance use of a computer".[22]

For the education work he carried out with Ivey, an asteroid (number 22415) was named HumeIvey in their honour.[23][24]

Sources

References
  1. "Pat Hume was Canada's pioneer of computer programming". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  2. "Patricia Hume Obituary". Toronto Star.
  3. "James Nairn Patterson Hume". Order of Canada.
  4. "Dr. J. N. Patterson Hume". Fellows - The Royal Society of Canada. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  5. "J.N. Hume". ACM Fellows.
  6. "J.N.P. Hume". IFIP - Silver Core.
  7. "2001: J. N. Patterson Hume". Sandford Fleming Medal.
  8. "Ajax Division". University of Toronto Engineering. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  9. "Deeds of Ajax defined an era at U of T". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  10. Hume, James. "James Nairn Patterson Hume fonds". University of Toronto Archives. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  11. Hume, J.N. Patterson; Worsley, Beatrice (1955). "Transcode: A system of automatic coding for FERUT". Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery. 2 (4): 243–252. doi:10.1145/320809.320811. S2CID 732416.
  12. Hume, J. N. Patterson (25 May 2009). "Great Teachers from our Past". Great Teaching, University of Toronto. Archived from the original on 25 May 2009. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  13. Gotlieb, C. C.; Hume, J. N. P. (1958). "High Speed Data Processing". Google Books.
  14. "High Speed Data Processing - OED" (PDF). ACM. doi:10.1145/1141880.1370098. S2CID 25320478. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  15. "Computing in Canada: Building a Digital Future" (PDF). Canadian Science and Technology Museum. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  16. "further reading". Jnp.hume.ca. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  17. "Hall of Fame 2002". Canadian Information Productivity Awards. 14 July 2007. Archived from the original on 14 July 2007.
  18. "A code pioneer". IT World Canada News 2002. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  19. "Honorary Doctorates". Queen's University: School of Computing.
  20. "John H. Yocom". Canadian Public Relations Society.
  21. Hume, Patterson. "Obituary". The Toronto Star.
  22. "Lifetime Achievement Awards 2014". Canadian Association of Computer Science. Retrieved 22 October 2018.
  23. "Up, Up and Far Away: An Asteroid Named HumeIvey". University of Toronto. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  24. "Asteroid (22415) HumeIvey". The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
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