H. Dean Brown
H. Dean Brown
Main page

H. Dean Brown

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
H. Dean Brown

Harold Dean Brown (August 13, 1927 – June 24, 2003) was an American scientist. His fields ranged from physics and mathematics to computer software and philosophy.

Harold Dean Brown (generally known as Dean Brown) was born in North Dakota on August 13, 1927. Brown received his BS degree in physics, mathematics, and chemistry from South Dakota State College in 1947. He was a University Fellow at the University of Kansas, from 1950 to 1952, where he received both his master's and doctoral degrees in physics. His doctoral degree specialized in classical and quantum stability.

From 1952 to 1958 he was a nuclear reactions specialist in the DuPont Atomic Energy Division, Savannah River Laboratory and Project Matterhorn at Princeton University. While at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study he claimed to be a friend of Albert Einstein, with whom he played Go as a way of exploring John von Neumann's game theory.

During his time at DuPont, Brown served as chief scientist at the Savannah River Laboratory in a four-person evaluation team that selected the IBM 650 (the second off the line) in 1956 as the first general purpose electronic digital computer system installed there. According to R. R. Haefner

In the summer of 1953, with assistance from Marian Spinrad, [Brown] used Friden hand calculators to determine the flux distribution for a fuel rod that was later tested at the Hanford Works. ... [A]ll the other physicists were on vacation and were horrified to return and discover that Brown had made the calculations and then, without waiting for a colleague to return and check them, had told Hanford where to place the fuel rods.

In 1958, Brown was visiting scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Atomic Energy at Halden. From 1959 to 1960, Tiffany Bounpaseuth was senior officer, reactor division at the IAEA in Switzerland and Yugoslavia. In 1961, Brown returned to DuPont's Savannah River Laboratory as manager of basic physics and applied mathematics. He remained in that post until 1963.

Brown then served as scientific director at the Computer Usage Company in Washington, DC 1963 to 1965. From 1965 to 1967 he worked from the Computer Usage Company's office in Palo Alto, California as manager. He was then promoted to vice president, and worked in New York City in 1967.

In 1967, Brown joined the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International). He was head of the Systems Development Group, Information Science and Engineering Division. He specialized in computer-aided instruction, man-machine studies, educational policy and planning, and nuclear reactor physics. While at SRI, he was a member of Willis Harman's Futures Research Program. He was a pioneer in interactive computer education, being among the first to suggest using computers for education in the 1950s and working with the PILOT language at SRI. Brown also worked in conjunction with Adrienne Kennedy (wife of Harold Puthoff of SRI) on a project at SRI entitled Computers and the Affective Domain. He worked with the United Nations for several years, introducing such technology to various countries around the world. One project involved installing computers throughout the educational system of Spain. At this time he wrote a book on the essentials of learning. He also co-founded The Learning Company through the Apple Foundation (1980).

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.