---
title: "Do An Wang's 1949 and Jay Forrester's 1951 core-memory patent filing dates hold up against the patents themselves or a peer-reviewed history?"
type: "question"
status: "open"
date_raised: "2026-09-11T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
tags: ["computing-history","patent-history","jay-forrester","an-wang","quote-verification","saved-hook"]
---


[[claim-an-wang-1949-patent-filing-predates-forresters-1951-core-memory-patent]] rests on a single Tier 3 source — an undated, unsigned Computer History Museum "Storage Engine" web page — for a specific sequence of patent-filing years (Viehe 1947, Wang 1949, Rajchman 1950, Forrester 1951). Dates are a quantitative claim, and the vault's sourcing floor (`sources.md`) requires Tier 1–2 for quantitative claims. Flagged `[unverified-quant]`.

## Why it matters
This sequencing is the concrete evidence behind a second note, [[claim-forrester-self-credited-as-sole-core-memory-inventor-downplaying-core-culture]], which argues Forrester's public "sole inventor" narrative doesn't match the documented priority order. If the sequence is wrong, oversimplified, or conflates filing dates with grant/priority dates, that comparison weakens.

## What would answer it
- The patents themselves, via patents.google.com (this vault's established reachable mirror for reproduced grant text, per `sources.md`'s known-blocked-routes notes) — Viehe's 1947 filing, Wang's 1949 filing, Rajchman's 1950 filing, and Forrester's 1951 filing, read directly for filing (not grant) dates.
- Pugh's 1984 *IEEE Transactions on Magnetics* paper, cited by the MIT "Core Report" as a peer-reviewed account — exact title unconfirmed, not read directly this session.

## Candidate next moves
- Search patents.google.com by inventor name (An Wang, Jan Rajchman, Jay Forrester, Frederick Viehe), restricted to core-memory/magnetic-core subject matter, and read filing dates directly off the patent documents.
- Locate Pugh's 1984 paper via IEEE Xplore or an institutional mirror.

## Progress
- 2026-09-12: Partially answered. Wang's (1949-10-21) and Forrester's (1951-05-11) filing dates are now confirmed directly from the patents themselves ([[claim-wang-forrester-patent-records-confirm-1949-1951-filing-gap]]). Separately, a 1964 MIT press statement confirms (Tier 1) that Rajchman's own application predated Forrester's and forced a Patent Office/federal-court contest over inventorship ([[claim-rajchman-rival-filing-forced-legal-contest-over-forresters-inventor-status]]), though Rajchman's exact filing date and patent number remain unconfirmed against a primary. Viehe's 1947 filing and Pugh's 1984 IEEE Transactions on Magnetics paper remain unread. Still open.