A ..
I don't think the model, the mathematical models, they certainly weren`t prolific in
the '50s. I suppose by the ' 6 0 s , a lot of people like Ray Linsley , I mentioned, and
some people in the Geological Survey, and Roy Beard out at the Hydrologic
Engineering Center, they were all developing mathematical models to do the things
we had been doing more by hand previous to that. I suppose that was a major
change. Of course, the only way you could do that was to use computers. I guess
that was just a normal development. Probably the same thing was happening in
every other field also as the computers became more usable. I've forgotten when
the Hydrologic Engineering Center was established.
Q ..
Early ' 6 0 s , I think, wasn't it?
`62, `63, `64, something like that.
A ..
I thought it was in the '60s. It was after we had the meeting with Von Neumann.
That must have been back in the '50s. But the Hydrologic Engineering Center, that
was around the low '60s or late '50s. They were in the forefront of that change that
was going on.
Q ..
Now, in an area like hydrol ogy , computers were very critical because of the large
amounts of data you had to analyze?
A ..
Just like I think I mentioned when we were studying regulation procedures for Lake
Ontario, to run it through 100 years of data, even though it was on a monthly basis,
doing it by hand was a horrible job. Whereas the Canadians started developing
computer programs for it where they could do it a lot faster than I could. It's just
like when I was in Paris I decided I wasn't going to learn French. I never did get
very deep into being able to program, to write programs for computers. I just never
really had any opportunity, and I didn't have any burning desire or something like
that.
Q ..
So you had somebody else do that for you, right?
A
Yes. Well, the people that were good at mathematics--a lot of problems, hydraulic
problems maybe more so than hydrologic problems, such as the flow of water. The
theory was available on the flow of water and the mathematics were available, but
it was too complex to solve by `hand. But as the computers became available and the
people were able to solve these equations with the computers, why, then they did
begin to become a little more scientific, use more scientific procedures in solving
water problems. Gosh, today when I read these publications and stuff of the things
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