Mary Tsingou (married name: Mary Tsingou-Menzel; born October 14, 1928) is an American physicist and mathematician of Greek-Bulgarian descent. She was one of the first programmers on the MANIAC computer at

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy ...

and is best known for having coded the celebrated computer experiment with

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian and naturalized American physicist, renowned for being the creator of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project ...

, John Pasta, and

Stanislaw Ulam Stanislav and variants may refer to: People *Stanislav (given name), a Slavic given name with many spelling variations (Stanislaus, Stanislas, Stanisław, etc.) Places * Stanislav, Kherson Oblast, a coastal village in Ukraine * Stanislaus County, ...

. This experiment became an inspiration for the fields of

chaos theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of Scientific method, scientific study and branch of mathematics. It focuses on underlying patterns and Deterministic system, deterministic Scientific law, laws of dynamical systems that are highly sens ...

and

scientific computing Computational science, also known as scientific computing, technical computing or scientific computation (SC), is a division of science, and more specifically the Computer Sciences, which uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and s ...

, and was a turning point in

soliton In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a nonlinear, self-reinforcing, localized wave packet that is , in that it preserves its shape while propagating freely, at constant velocity, and recovers it even after collisions with other such local ...

theory.

Life

Mary Tsingou was born in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

, her Greek parents having moved to the United States from

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

. In the aftermath of the Great Depression, the family left the US to spend several years in Bulgaria. In 1940, they returned to the States, where Tsingou attended high school and college. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and education in 1951 from the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

. She then studied at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

, receiving a master's degree in mathematics in 1955. In 1958, she married Joseph Menzel.

Career

Tsingou joined the theoretical division of the

, where she became one of the first programmers on the MANIAC. Besides working on weapons, the group also studied fundamental physics. Following Fermi's suggestion to analyze numerically the predictions of a statistical model of solids, Tsingou came up with an algorithm to simulate the relaxation of energy in a model crystal, which she implemented on the MANIAC. The analysis became known in the computational physics community as the Fermi–Pasta–Ulam–Tsingou problem (FPUT), and Tsingou's contributions have since been recognized. The result was an important stepping stone for

. Early MANIAC programmers included Mary Hunsberger Kircher. She wa
interviewed in 2002
by th
IEEE History Center
Mary Tsingou-Menzel was als
interviewed in 2002
After Fermi's death, James L. Tuck and Tsingou-Menzel repeated the original FPUT results and provided strong indication that the nonlinear FPUT problem might be integrable. Tsingou-Menzel continued her computational career at Los Alamos. She was an early expert on Fortran. In the 1980s, she worked on calculations in the Star Wars program (the Strategic Defense Initiative). She retired in 1991.

Recognition

The paper published by Los Alamos National Lab in 1955 earned recognition for Fermi, Pasta, and Ulam for its novel discoveries, with Tsingou being acknowledged in the footnote. It was not until 2008, when an article published in ''

Physics Today ''Physics Today'' is the membership magazine of the American Institute of Physics. First published in May 1948, it is issued on a monthly schedule, and is provided to the members of ten physics societies, including the American Physical Society. ...

'' called to rename the FPU problem to the FPUT problem to give her proper credit for her contribution. Subsequent publications referencing the FPUT problem reflect this change. In 2020, National Security Science magazine, published by

, featured an article on Tsingou that included her commentary and historical reflections on the FPUT problem. The article was titled "We thank Miss Mary Tsingou" in reference to the acknowledgement that appeared on the title page of the original FPUT technical report from 1955.

Publications

* * Joseph J. Devaney, Albert G. Petschek, Mary Tsingou Menzel
On the Production of Heavy Uranium Isotopes in a Very High Density Fast Neutron Flux
(accessed Dec. 2012). Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory of the University of California, 1958; 17 pages.

References

External links

Pioneer Women in Chaos Theory.
Frank Y. Wang.
The Fermi–Pasta–Ulam “numerical experiment”: history and pedagogical perspectives.
Dauxois, Peyrard and Ruffo.
A not-so-mysterious woman
''Los Alamos Monitor'' online.

Philosophy of Science Portal, A Venue for Discussions of Science, Philosophy and the Arts
Mary Tsingou-Menzel Oral History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tsingou, Mary 1928 births Living people Scientific computing researchers Los Alamos National Laboratory personnel Numerical analysts American women physicists 20th-century American physicists 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American physicists 21st-century American mathematicians 21st-century American women scientists American people of Greek descent Scientists from Milwaukee Scientists from Wisconsin Mathematicians from Wisconsin 20th-century American women mathematicians 21st-century American women mathematicians American expatriates in Bulgaria