Many years ago I was honored to get a chance to meet Grace Hopper, a little old lady in Navy dress whites, with a star on her shoulder and tennis shoes on her feet. Well, I don't remember if she had a star on her shoulder but she was a rear admiral (LH) at the time.

In her presentation she told about how she was once asked by a general officer what a nanosecond was, and she had an inspiration. She took some of that computer wire (the multicolored stranded stuff that used to be ubiquitous in computer labs) and cut it into lengths of about a foot. The time it takes for light to travel from one end of this wire to the other, she explained, is a nanosecond. I still have the wire and fond memories of having coffee with her after her presentation. We talked about Ireland, not COBOL.


TEd