John kemeny mathematician biography

Computer Pioneers - John George Kemeny

Quick Info

Born

31 May 1926
Budapest, Hungary

Died

26 December 1992
Etna, New Hampshire, USA

Summary

John Kemeny was a Hungarian-born American mathematician and computer scientist best known as the co-inventor of the BASIC computer language.

Biography

John Kemeny's mother was Lucy Fried and his father was Tibor Kemeny who worked as an import-export wholesaler.

John attended primary school in Budapest. He came from a Jewish family and, in 1940, his father had the good sense to take his family to the United States. Understandably, not all the family wanted to leave their home but Kemeny's grandfather, who refused to leave, died in the Holocaust.

Thomas E. Kurtz - Wikipedia

An aunt and uncle of Kemeny's also failed to survive the Nazis.

Kemeny's family settled in New York and John attended the George Washington High School in New York City. Kemeny entered Princeton in 1945, after becoming an American citizen, where he studied mathematics and philosophy. However he took a year off durin John Kemeny (1926 - 1992) - Biography - MacTutor History of ...

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