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Posted by: John Hessler
This post is dedicated to the memory of Katherine Kiernan, one of the only female programmers at the Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis, during the early years of the development of Geographical Information Systems. She passed away last year. Today’s post is the beginning of a series called,”Computing Space,” which will highlight …
Posted in: Biography, Geographic Information Science
Posted by: John Hessler
Last week we passed an important milestone in the history of science. November 25th, 2015, marks one hundred years since Albert Einstein delivered his now infamous address to the Prussian Academy of Sciences, during which he laid out the series of equations which lie at the heart of his General Theory of Relativity. This anniversary …
Posted in: Big Data and Visualization, Biography
Posted by: John Hessler
Who are the next generation of cartographers? What draws them to this part science, part artistic expression, part design discipline? Many cartographers of the past and those working today often talk about an early love for maps and how something about their graphic form drew them to the field. Some of the most famous mapmakers, …
Posted in: Biography
Posted by: John Hessler
Recently, the Geography and Map Division has undertaken a large scale project to collect manuscripts, technical information, algorithms, software, and hardware from the earliest days of computer cartography. This project, which is being directed by the author, began as a series of lectures for graduate students that I gave at Johns Hopkins University on the …
Posted in: Biography, Geographic Information Science
Posted by: Carlyn Osborn
At the age of 33, James Wilson (1763-1855) moved out of the log cabin he had built by hand, sold all the stock he possessed on his 100 acre farm, and managed to scrape together $130 in rural eighteenth century New Hampshire. And for what purpose? Wilson wanted to purchase all thirteen volumes of the …
Posted in: Biography