New York Times, February 22, 2003  Obituaries

Julian Bigelow, 89, Computer Pioneer, Is Dead

ulian Bigelow, a mathematician and electrical engineer who was a pioneer in the fields of cybernetics and computing, died on Monday in Princeton, N.J., where he lived. He was 89. 

In 1946, when John von Neumann set out to design and build a stored- program computer at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, he contacted the mathematician Norbert Weiner for a recommendation for a chief engineer. Dr. Weiner suggested Mr. Bigelow, with whom he had collaborated during World War II on the creation of fire-control systems for weapons. 
 

The resulting computer, which was known as the IAS and which was assembled beginning in June 1946, was one of a handful of computers like ENIAC, EDVAC, Whirlwind, EDSAC and Univac 1 whose construction brought the dawn of the information age. 

It was the IAS machine, however, whose basic design became the template for the modern computers that are now ubiquitous worldwide. 

Fifteen clones of the original IAS machine were built. The copies had names like Johniac and Maniac and they appeared all over the world, including Russia and Israel. 

"A tidal wave of computation power was about to break and inundate everything in science and much elsewhere, and things would never be the same afterwards," Mr. Bigelow wrote in a short history of the project published in 1980. 

Before beginning his career as one of the world's first computer architects, Mr. Bigelow was the co-author of a seminal paper with Dr. Weiner and Arturo Rosenblueth, titled "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology," which advanced a set of unifying principles about behavior that would come to serve as the foundation for the field of cybernetics, which studies the way mechanical, biological and electronic systems communicate and interact. 

Mr. Bigelow had the practical engineering insight that throughout his career played a crucial role in linking the work of leading theoreticians like Dr. Weiner and Dr. von Neumann to the real world. 

"In a way, Julian was the missing link," said George Dyson, a researcher who is now a visiting scholar at the Institute of Advance Study. 

The article made a strong impression on a small group of intellectuals and scientists, and it led to the formation of a small group called the Teleological Society. That group in turn led to a group of scientific meetings called the Macy Conferences, in which Mr. Bigelow participated. 

Sponsored by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, the conferences brought together an influential group of scientists and thinkers, including Dr. Wiener, Warren McCulloch, Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead and Dr. von Neumann. The conferences were later known as the cybernetics conferences and ultimately laid the groundwork for much of the future research in a diverse range of sciences from biological physics to computer science. 

When Mr. Bigelow arrived at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1946, the idea of Dr. von Neumann's computer was meeting stiff resistance from the institute's pure theoreticians. 

"The folks at the institute, especially some of the mathematicians, were outraged that people who got their hands dirty doing things like computing would invade their sanctuary," recalled Willis Ware, an electrical engineer who was hired to work with Mr. Bigelow on the construction of the IAS computer. 

Tensions eased later, after the theoreticians discovered that the new computer crowd had useful skills. 

"They found out we knew how to build and repair hi-fi equipment, and we became more popular," he said. 

In a world that was known for brilliant intellects and large egos, Mr. Bigelow was remembered as someone who was remarkably unassuming and yet was tremendously creative and resourceful. 

"He was thrilled by the engineering challenges that we faced," said Hewitt Crane, a computer designer who was hired away from I.B.M.to work on the IAS computer in the early 1950's. "He was always like a little kid with a smile on his face." 

He recalled a parade down one of the main streets of Princeton that accompanied Mr. Bigelow's house when he moved it from one side of town to another. It was a struggle to persuade the city government to permit him to move it, but he cut it into several pieces and measured the house precisely to ensure that it would fit on the streets. 

Mr. Bigelow studied electrical engineering and mathematics at M.I.T. and received a master's degree. 

He was an avid airplane pilot and flew regularly into his 80's, when he renovated a plane as a hobby. 

He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth; two sons, Nicholas, of Rochester, and Marc, of Wolcott, Vt.; and a daughter, Alice, of London.