I was pretty ignorant about this before today. What I've learned today is (1) that there are several competing claims for who has the first PhD in Computer Science (or the first PhD by an American, or Woman...), (2) all of those claims depend not on the quality of the work by the person but rather by whether something counts as "computer science" (does it have to be issued by a Computer Science department? Department with Computer Science in the name? Can the degree just say it's for Computer Science? Does it depend on the thesis topic?), and (3) for the most part none of the candidates really care too much about the distinctions about who was 1st.
But it is an interesting exercise in learning about computer scientists that I didn't know much about before.
I was pretty ignorant about this before today. What I've learned today is (1) that there are several competing claims for who has the first PhD in Computer Science (or the first PhD by an American, or Woman...), (2) all of those claims depend not on the quality of the work by the person but rather by whether something counts as "computer science" (does it have to be issued by a Computer Science department? Department with Computer Science in the name? Can the degree just say it's for Computer Science? Does it depend on the thesis topic?), and (3) for the most part none of the candidates really care too much about the distinctions about who was 1st.
But it is an interesting exercise in learning about computer scientists that I didn't know much about before.