James Nairn Patterson "Pat" Hume (17 March 1923 – 9 May 2013) was a Canadian professor and science educator who has been called "Canada's pioneer of computer programming". He was a professor of Physics and of Computer Science at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

, and he served as the second Master of

Massey College Massey College is the postgraduate University of Toronto#Colleges, college of the University of Toronto located at the University of Toronto#St. George campus, St. George campus in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The college was established, built and ...

from 1981 to 1988.

Life and career

Hume received a B.A. in mathematics and physics in 1945, an M.A. in physics in 1946 and a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in physics in 1949 (theoretical atomic spectroscopy) from the

. From 1946 to 1949 he taught returning soldiers mathematics at the University of Toronto campus in Ajax. He was an instructor in physics at

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between 1949 and 1950 before rejoining the University of Toronto as an assistant professor of physics. In 1953, Hume and Beatrice Worsley began development of

Transcode Transcoding is the direct digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding to another, such as for video data files, audio files (e.g., MP3, WAV), or character encoding (e.g., UTF-8, ISO/IEC 8859). This is usually done in cases where a target de ...

, a new

computer language A computer language is a formal language used to communicate with a computer. Types of computer languages include: * Software construction#Construction languages, Construction language – all forms of communication by which a human can Comput ...

for the Ferranti Mark 1 machine known as FERUT. In collaboration with his colleague Donald Ivey, he helped to steer the teaching of

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

in a new direction through the use of

educational television Educational television or learning television is the use of television programs in the field of distance education. It may be in the form of individual television programs or dedicated specialty channels that are often associated with cable televi ...

programs and movies. Starting in 1958 Hume and Ivey prepared and presented over one hundred television programs for the

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on various physics topics. Short films for the PSSC such as ''

Frames of Reference In physics and astronomy, a frame of reference (or reference frame) is an abstract coordinate system, whose origin, orientation, and scale have been specified in physical space. It is based on a set of reference points, defined as geometric ...

'' and the CBC TV show '' The Nature of Things'' used humour and creative camerawork to make physics accessible to a wider range of students. In 1958 with Calvin Gotlieb he published ''High-speed Data Processing'', the first book on using computers in business which was "recognized by The Oxford English Dictionary in twelve computer-related entries: block, character, datum, generator, housekeeping, in-line, interpreter, keyboard, logical, loop, matrix and simulate". In 1964, with Calvin Gotlieb and Thomas Hull, he founded the Computer Science department at the University of Toronto. With Ric Holt, he co-authored many computer programming textbooks, for SP/k, Fortran, Pascal, Turing and

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

. Hume was the second Master of

Massey College, Toronto Massey College is the postgraduate University of Toronto#Colleges, college of the University of Toronto located at the University of Toronto#St. George campus, St. George campus in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The college was established, built and ...

having been a Senior Fellow since 1973. Upon his retirement, he was appointed Professor Emeritus in 1988. In 2002, he was inducted into the Canadian Information Productivity Awards (CIPA) Hall of Fame. In 2006 he was awarded an Honorary D.Sc. from Queen's University School of Computing. He was an active member of The Arts and Letters Club of Toronto and for many years collaborated with Jack Yokom to produce the Annual Spring Review. He died on 9 May 2013. In 2014 Hume was given a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Association of Computer Science including for "the world's first long-distance use of a computer". For the education work he carried out with Ivey, an asteroid (number 22415) was named HumeIvey in their honour.

Sources

On Beyond Darwin, Chapter 1In Memoriam: University of Toronto Magazine

References

External links

Download or watch online: Frames of Reference (1960)

On Beyond Darwin
by Patterson Hume
Honorary Doctorate
at Queen's University *
James Nairn Patterson Hume archival papers
held at th
University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hume, Patterson 1923 births 2013 deaths Canadian computer scientists Massey College, Toronto people Scientists from Brooklyn University of Toronto alumni Academic staff of the University of Toronto