{"id":845,"date":"2015-12-02T15:09:59","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T23:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mcjones.org\/dustydecks\/?p=845"},"modified":"2025-10-27T09:45:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T16:45:24","slug":"harold-v-mcintosh-1929-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mcjones.org\/dustydecks\/archives\/2015\/12\/02\/845\/","title":{"rendered":"Harold V. McIntosh, 1929-2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update 5\/21\/2019:<\/strong>\u00a0Genaro J. Mart\u00ednez, Juan C. Seck-Tuoh-Mora, Sergio V. Chapa-Vergara, and Christian Lemaitre\u00a0<\/span>recently published a paper “Brief Notes and History [of] Computing in Mexico during 50 years” centered\u00a0around\u00a0McIntosh’s accomplishments. arXiv:1905.07527<\/a> [cs.GL]\u00a0DOI<\/a><\/p>\n

Update 3\/31\/2019:<\/strong>\u00a0Here are photos<\/a> from a November 2017 memorial<\/a> held for McIntosh at the Faculty of Computer Science of the Institute of Science at Autonomous University of Puebla, Puebla, Mexico.<\/p>\n

Update 1\/5\/2017:<\/strong> For more on McIntosh’s professional career, see these obituaries at\u00a0Physics Today<\/em><\/a> and Journal of Cellular Automata<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Harold<\/a>Harold V. McIntosh died November 30, 2015 in Puebla, Mexico. He was an American mathematician who became interested in what is now known as computer algebra to solve problems in physics, leading to his early adoption of the programming language LISP<\/a> and to his design of the languages CONVERT (in collaboration with Adolfo Guzm\u00e1n) and REC. His early education and employment was in the United States, but he spent the last 50+ years in Mexico, and received a Ph.D. in Quantum Chemistry at the University of Uppsala in 1972.<\/p>\n

McIntosh was born in Colorado in 1929, the oldest of four sons of Charles Roy and Lillian (Martin) McIntosh. He attended Brighton High School in Brighton, near Denver. In 1949 he received a Bachelor of Science in physics from the Colorado Agricultural and Mechanical College, and in 1952 he received a Master of Science in mathematics from Cornell University. He did further graduate studies at Cornell and Brandeis, but stopped before receiving a Ph.D. to take a job at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. Two years later, he moved to RIAS (Research Institute for Advanced Studies), a division of the Glenn L. Martin Company. Around 1962 he accepted a position in the Physics and Astronomy department and the Quantum Theory Project at the University of Florida. After two years at the University of Florida, McIntosh accepted an offer at CENAC (Centro Nacional de Calculo, Instituto Politecnico Nacional) in Mexico. Over the next years, McIntosh worked in various positions in Mexico at Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Instituto Nacional de Energ\u00eda Nuclear, and, from 1975 on, Universidad Aut\u00f3noma de Puebla.<\/p>\n

McIntosh was widely regarded for his research, writing and teaching; for details, see Gerardo Cisneros-S.: “La computaci\u00f3n en M\u00e9xico y la influencia de H. V. McIntosh en su desarrollo” (PDF<\/a>). He organized several special summer programs in the early 1960s that introduced a number of students to higher mathematics and computer programming (see here<\/a> for example). He also had a lifelong interest in flexagons<\/a>, which he shared with his students. A symposium<\/a> in his honor was held a month before he died.<\/p>\n

Other resources<\/h2>\n

Harold V. McIntosh: CELLULAR AUTOMATA MISCELLANEA. Web site at cinvestav.mx<\/a><\/p>\n

1961 Annual report of RIAS. PDF at ubalt.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Paul McJones. The First International LISP Conference (1963). Dusty Decks blog, April 23, 2012<\/a><\/p>\n

Paul McJones. Harold V. McIntosh and his students: Lisp escapes MIT. Dusty Decks blog, July 6, 2012<\/a><\/p>\n

Paul McJones, editor. History of Lisp : Other Lisp 1.5 implementations : MBLISP. Online at softwarepreservation.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Celebration of late Prof. Harold V. McIntosh achievements. Faculty of Computer Science of the Institute of Science at Autonomous University of Puebla, Puebla, Mexico, November 29, 2017. Online at uncomp.uwe.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

Acknowledgements<\/h2>\n

Jos\u00e9 Manuel G\u00f3mez Soto for notifying me of McIntosh’s death and supplying the link to this obituary<\/a>; Robert Yates, Lowell Hawkinson, and Adolfo Guzm\u00e1n Arenas for their contributions to “Harold V. McIntosh and his students: Lisp escapes MIT”<\/a>; and\u00a0Genaro Juarez Martinez for informing me about the memorial celebration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update 5\/21\/2019:\u00a0Genaro J. Mart\u00ednez, Juan C. Seck-Tuoh-Mora, Sergio V. Chapa-Vergara, and Christian Lemaitre\u00a0recently published a paper “Brief Notes and History [of] Computing in Mexico during 50 years” centered\u00a0around\u00a0McIntosh’s accomplishments. arXiv:1905.07527 [cs.GL]\u00a0DOI Update 3\/31\/2019:\u00a0Here are photos from a November 2017 memorial held for McIntosh at the Faculty of Computer Science of the Institute of Science at … Continue reading “Harold V. McIntosh, 1929-2015”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lisp","category-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcjones.org\/dustydecks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcjones.org\/dustydecks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcjones.org\/dustydecks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcjones.org\/dustydecks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcjones.org\/dustydecks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/mcjones.org\/dustydecks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1227,"href":"https:\/\/mcjones.org\/dustydecks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions\/1227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcjones.org\/dustydecks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcjones.org\/dustydecks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcjones.org\/dustydecks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}