World’s First Computer Bug

On September 9, 1947, a team of computer scientists and engineers reported the world’s first computer bug. A bug is a flaw or glitch in a system. Thomas Edison reported “ bugs ” in his designs as early as the 1800s, but this was the first bug identified in a computer . Today, software bugs can impact the functioning, safety, and security of computer operating systems. “De bugging ” and bug management are important parts of the computer science industry.

This bug , however, was literally a bug . “First actual case of bug being found,” one of the team members wrote in the logbook. The team at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, found that their computer , the Mark II, was delivering consistent errors. When they opened the computer ’s hardware, they found … a moth. The trapped insect had disrupted the electronics of the computer .

Among the team who found the first-reported computer bug was computer -language pioneer Dr. Grace Hopper. She is often given credit for reporting the bug , but that is not true. She was, however, the person who likely made the incident famous.

Hopper, who earned a mathematics doctorate from Yale University in 1934, was one of the first computer programmers. Dr. Hopper invented the first English-language data-processing compiler, which laid the foundation for the development of machine-independent programming languages, like COBOL that she helped develop.