Computer science development of sophisticated computing equipment. Wilhelm Schickard designed and constructed the first working mechanical calculator in 1623. In 1673, Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated a digital mechanical calculator, called the Stepped Reckoner. He may be considered the first computer scientist and information theorist, for, among other reasons, documenting the binary number system. In 1820, Thomas de Colmar launched the mechanical calculator industry when he released his simplified arithmometer, which was the first calculating machine strong enough and reliable enough to be used daily in an office environment. Charles Babbage started the design of the first "automatic mechanical calculator", his Difference Engine, in
Curtis Cooper (mathematician) Curtis Cooper (mathematician) Curtis Niles Cooper is an American mathematician. He currently is a professor at the University of Central Missouri, in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. Using software from the GIMPS project, Cooper and Steven Boone found the 43rd known Mersenne prime on their 700 PC cluster on December 15, 2005. The prime, 2 − 1, is 9,152,052 digits long and is the ninth Mersenne prime for GIMPS. Cooper and Boone became the first GIMPS contributors to find two primes when they also found the 44th known Mersenne prime, 2 − 1 (or M), which has 9,808,358