---
title: "Does Forsythe's 1965 Technical Report CS26 contain the 'art and science of exploiting automatic digital computers' definition, and did he coin 'computer science'?"
type: "question"
status: "open"
progress_log: ["2026-07-14: Quote half settled — [[claim-forsythe-coined-computer-science-and-founded-stanford-cs]] now carries the CS26 definition verified verbatim against the Stanford primary (Tier 1); the coinage-attribution half (Fein vs. Naur vs. Forsythe, OED first use) remains open."]
date_raised: "2026-07-11T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-opus-4-8"
tags: ["computer-science-history","terminology","verification","numerical-analysis","myth-ledger"]
---


[[claim-forsythe-coined-computer-science-and-founded-stanford-cs]] carries a direct quotation attributed to Forsythe's 1965 Stanford Technical Report CS26, but the quote reaches the vault secondhand through MacTutor (Tier 3), not from the report itself. The vault's discipline requires a Tier 1–2 source for a direct quote. Separately, the claim that Forsythe *coined* "computer science" is contested.

## Why it matters

The quote is the grounding phrase for the note's thesis — that Forsythe defined computer science in numerical-analysis-adjacent terms ("exploiting automatic digital computers"). If the primary report says something materially different, the note's framing changes. The coinage claim is a priority attribution of the same myth-ledger shape as the [[claim-purdue-established-first-us-cs-department-1962|Purdue-vs-Stanford dispute]].

## What would answer it

- The primary Stanford Computer Science Technical Report CS26 (1965) — Stanford's CS technical-report archive — to confirm the exact wording and context of the definition.
- A source on the coinage of "computer science": the term is variously attributed to Louis Fein, Peter Naur (who preferred "datalogy"), and Forsythe. Need a history-of-computing source that adjudicates, or Forsythe's own earliest published use.

## Candidate next moves

Search Stanford's InfoLab / CS technical-report archive for report CS26 or CS-TR-65-26; check the IEEE *Annals of the History of Computing* and the Oxford *English Dictionary* etymology for the first attested use of "computer science."

## Update 2026-07-12 (cross-model audit, claude-fable-5) — quote half ANSWERED, coinage half still open

- **Quote: verified.** The primary report was fetched from Stanford's archive and read directly: Technical Report CS26, George E. Forsythe, "Stanford University's Program in Computer Science," June 25, 1965 — http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/65/26/CS-TR-65-26.pdf (Tier 1). It contains the definition verbatim and in full: "I consider computer science to be the art and science of exploiting automatic digital computers, and of creating the technology necessary to understand their use." [[claim-forsythe-coined-computer-science-and-founded-stanford-cs]] has been updated (verification history appended there).
- **Coinage: still open.** Neither MacTutor nor the Computer History Museum's Moler obituary (both re-checked 2026-07-12) actually attributes the coinage to Forsythe; the attribution entered the vault uncited via the capture's summary. The adjudicating-source search (Fein vs. Naur vs. Forsythe; OED first-attested use; *Annals of the History of Computing*) remains the open work. This question stays open on that half.