Stibitz, George Robert (1904–1995)

US computer engineer. Stibitz was the first to notice the similarity between telephone relays (switches) and binary logic, and on his kitchen table constructed a one-digit binary adding machine from bits of a tobacco tin, torch bulbs, and batteries. He took the idea to work – at Bell Labs in New York – and helped develop a complex calculator which was demonstrated in 1940. In the same year, he transmitted computer work over the telephone. In 1964, using computer models to study human physiology, he became a research associate at Dartmouth Medical School.

He was born in York, Pennsylvania. He began work at the Bell Labs in 1930 on problems relating to the calculation of complex numbers. He worked for the government during World War II. He was appointed a professor in 1965 and retired in 1973.