J. Halcombe Laning
Encyclopedia
Dr. J. Halcombe "Hal" Laning Jr. (born 14 February 1920 in Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

) was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 computer pioneer who in 1952 invented an algebraic compiler called George (also known as the Laning and Zierler system
Laning and Zierler system
The Laning and Zierler system was one of the first operating algebraic compilers, that is, a system capable of accepting mathematical formulae in algebraic notation and producing equivalent machine code. It was implemented in 1954 for the MIT WHIRLWIND by J. Halcombe Laning and Neal Zierler...

 after the authors of the published paper) that ran on the MIT Whirlwind
Whirlwind (computer)
The Whirlwind computer was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is the first computer that operated in real time, used video displays for output, and the first that was not simply an electronic replacement of older mechanical systems...

, the first real-time computer. He later became a key contributor to the 1960s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...

 race to the moon, with pioneering work on space-based guidance systems for the Apollo moon missions. From 1955 to 1980, he was deputy associate director of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory.

In 1956 he published the book Random Processes in Automatic Control (McGraw-Hill Series on Control System Engineering), with Richard Battin as a coauthor.

In collaboration with Phil Hankins and Charlie Werner of MIT, he initiated work on MAC (MIT
Algebraic Compiler), an algebraic programming language for the IBM 650, which was completed by early spring of 1958.

He later worked in the MIT Draper Lab, with Richard H. Battin, to develop a scheme for doing onboard navigation on the Apollo program's command/service module
Apollo Command/Service Module
The Command/Service Module was one of two spacecraft, along with the Lunar Module, used for the United States Apollo program which landed astronauts on the Moon. It was built for NASA by North American Aviation...

 guidance system.

Laning received his PhD from MIT in 1947 with a dissertation titled "Mathematical Theory of Lubrication-Type Flow". His undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering (1940) was also from MIT.

He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...

 in 1983 for his work in aerospace engineering
Aerospace engineering
Aerospace engineering is the primary branch of engineering concerned with the design, construction and science of aircraft and spacecraft. It is divided into two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering...

, particularly his "unique pioneering achievements in missile guidance and computer science -- the Q-guidance
Q-guidance
Q-guidance is a method of missile guidance used in some U.S. ballistic missiles and some civilian space flights. It was developed in the 1950's by J...

 system for Thor and Polaris [missiles] and George". He is also an honorary member of the American Mathematical Society
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, which it does with various publications and conferences as well as annual monetary awards and prizes to mathematicians.The society is one of the...

.

Laning features prominently in the third episode of the Science Channel's documentary
Documentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...

 miniseries titled Moon Machines which aired in June 2008.

External links

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