Description

Close-up on the display case from GCP-00004651. The largest section of text reads: "The Weather Group. Richardson's dream that 64,000 mathematicians could race the weather around the globe, predicting it in advance, was realized when a group headed by John von Neumann used the ENIAC to calculate a 24-hour forecast in 24 hours.

In August of 1946, von Neumann called a conference to describe a new computer. Saying that he intended to use the machine to forecast the weather numerically, he formed a group at Princeton to tackle that problem.

Jule Charney, who joined them in 1948, devised some simplified models of the atmospher, and by 1950 the group was ready to try a computer run. Since von Neumann's machine was not completed, permission was obtained to use the ENIAC at Aberdeen Proving Ground, and the first computer forecast was made." A photograph of this group of meteorologists, including Jule Charney (standing, second from left), has the following caption: "Jubilant meteorologists in front of the ENIAC at the completion of the first computer weather forecast: (standling from left) Ragnar Fjörtoft, Jule G. Charney, John C. Freeman, and Joseph Smagorinsky. In front of the two programmers from the ENIAC staff that assisted them." Below this photograph, a book is open to some diagrams from the ENIAC weather predictions. Original credit line: Charles Eames