Friedrich L. Bauer

"F. L. Bauer" redirects here. For the Austrian botanical illustrator, see Ferdinand Bauer.

Friedrich L. Bauer
Born	Friedrich Ludwig Bauer (1924-06-10)10 June 1924 Regensburg, Germany
Died	26 March 2015(2015-03-26) (aged 90)
Nationality	German
Alma mater	Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
Known for	Stack (data structure), Sequential Formula Translation, ALGOL
Awards	Iron Cross 2nd Class, Bundesverdienstkreuz 1st Class, IEEE Computer Pioneer Award (1988)
Scientific career
Fields	Computer Science Applied Mathematics
Institutions	University of Mainz Technical University of Munich
Doctoral advisor	Fritz Bopp, Georg Aumann
Doctoral students	Manfred Broy, David Gries, Manfred Paul, Gerhard Seegmüller, Josef Stoer, Peter Wynn, Christoph Zenger

Friedrich Ludwig "Fritz" Bauer (10 June 1924 – 26 March 2015) was a German computer scientist and professor emeritus at the Technical University of Munich.

Life

Bauer earned his Abitur in 1942 and served in the Wehrmacht during World War II, from 1943 to 1945. From 1946 to 1950, he studied mathematics and theoretical physics at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. Bauer received his doctorate under the supervision of Fritz Bopp for his thesis Gruppentheoretische Untersuchungen zur Theorie der Spinwellengleichungen ("Group-theoretic investigations of the theory of spin wave equations") in 1952. He completed his habilitation Über quadratisch konvergente Iterationsverfahren zur Lösung von algebraischen Gleichungen und Eigenwertproblemen ("On quadratically convergent iteration methods for solving algebraic equations and eigenvalue problems") in 1954 at the Technical University of Munich. After teaching as privatdozent at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität from 1954 to 1958, he became extraordinary professor for applied mathematics at the University of Mainz. Since 1963, he worked as a professor of mathematics and (since 1972) computer science at Technical University of Munich. He retired in 1989.

Bauer's early work involved the construction of computing machinery (e.g. the logical relay computer Stanislaus in 1951). In this context, he was the first to propose the widely used stack method of expression evaluation. Bauer also worked in the committees that developed the imperative computer programming languages ALGOL 58 and its successor ALGOL 60, important predecessors to all modern imperative programming languages. In 1968, Bauer coined the term Software Engineering which has been in widespread use since.

Bauer was an influential figure in establishing computer science as an independent subject in German universities.

His scientific contributions spread from numerical analysis (Bauer–Fike theorem) and fundamentals of interpretation and translation of programming languages, to his later works on systematics of program development, especially program transformation methods and systems (CIP-S) and the associated wide-spectrum language system CIP-L. He also wrote a well-respected book on cryptology, Decrypted secrets, now in its fourth edition.

He was the doctoral advisor of 39 students, including Manfred Broy, David Gries, Manfred Paul, Gerhard Seegmüller, Josef Stoer, Peter Wynn, and Christoph Zenger.

Friedrich Bauer was married to Hildegard Bauer-Vogg. He was the father of three sons and two daughters.

Definition of software engineering

Bauer was a colleague of the German Representative the NATO Science Committee. In 1967, NATO had been discussing 'The Software Crisis' and Bauer had suggested the term 'Software Engineering' as a way to conceive of both the problem and the solution.

In 1972, Bauer published the following definition of software engineering:
"Establishment and use of sound engineering principles to economically obtain software that is reliable and works on real machines efficiently."

Publications

• 1960 Sequential Formula Translation, Commun. ACM 3(2): 76-83, (together with Klaus Samelson), a very influential paper on compilers

Books

• 1964 Introduction to Algol, F.L. Bauer, R. Baumann, M. Feliciano, K. Samelson, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-477828-6
• 2006 Decrypted Secrets: Methods and Maxims of Cryptology 4th edition, New York, Springer, ISBN 3-540-24502-2

Awards

1944 Iron Cross 2nd Class

1968: Member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in mathematics and science class

1971: Bavarian Order of Merit

1978: Wilhelm Exner Medal (Austria).

1982: Federal Merit Cross 1st Class

1984: Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina

1986: Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art

1987: Honorary Member of the Society for computer science

1988: Golden Ring of Honour of the German Museum

1988: IEEE Computer Pioneer Award

1997: Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz Medal from the Technical University of Munich

1998: corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences

2002: Honorary Member of the Deutsches Museum

2004: Silver Medal of Merit of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences

Friedrich L. Bauer Prize for computer science at the TU Munich

In 2014 the TU Munich renamed their largest lecture hall in the department of Informatics and Computer Science after Friedrich Bauer.

Honorary doctorates

1974: Honorary Doctor of the University of Grenoble

1989: Honorary Doctor of the University of Passau

1998: Honorary doctorate from the Bundeswehr University Munich (Neubiberg)

External links

• Oral history interview with Friedrich L. Bauer, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Bauer discusses his education and early research, including the European side of the development of ALGOL, as well as his later work in numerical analysis and programming languages.
• Photograph of F. L. Bauer (provided by Brian Randell)
• Bauer about Rutishauser at a symposium at the ETH Zürich in 2002
• Friedrich L. Bauer at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Author profile in the database zbMATH