Symposium of Calculator Experts Opens New Computator Laboratory

Despite sickness which prevented two speakers, one of them President Conant, from making their appearances, the first sessions of a four-day long symposium on large scale calculating machines, sponsored by the University and the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance, began yesterday at the official opening of the new computation laboratory.

Over 200 experts in the fields of government, education, and industry, packing the first session of the conference heard Rear Admiral C. T. Joy, USN, pledge the availability of naval calculators to all scientists, in an opening address.

He praised the cordial relations between Harvard and the Navy, congratulating Howard H. Aiken, director of the Computation Laboratory and professor of Mathematics, under whose direction the University's first large scale Computator has been steadily in operation since its installation in August, 1944.

Speaking himself, Aiken declared that the enthusiasm of those attending emphasized the need for the conference "Development of the calculating machines has been so fast that we ourselves have not been able to keep up with them," he declared.

Research associates Richard M. Bock and Robert V. D. Cambell described the operation of Harvard's present calculators, the Mark I, which is in operation now, and the Mark II, which is in its linal stages of construction. Earlier in the day the participants had inspected the two calculators.

Other speakers during the day's two sessions were Richard H. Babbage, Lewis P. Tabor, of the University of Pennsylvania, and Samuel B. Williams.