astronomy

Kristen Nygaard

Kristen Nygaard is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kristen Nygaard rather than just read about it. In short: Kristen Nygaard (27 August 1926 – 10 August 2002) was a Norwegian computer scientist, programming language pioneer, and politician. Internationally, Nygaard is acknowledged as the co-inventor of object-oriented programming and the programming language Simula with Ole-Johan Dahl in the 1960s.

Key takeaways

Kristen Nygaard belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kristen Nygaard to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kristen Nygaard from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kristen Nygaard (27 August 1926 – 10 August 2002) was a Norwegian computer scientist, programming language pioneer, and politician. Internationally, Nygaard is acknowledged as the co-inventor of object-oriented programming and the programming language Simula with Ole-Johan Dahl in the 1960s. Nygaard and Dahl received the 2001 A. M. Turing Award for their contribution to computer science.

Early life and career Nygaard was born in Oslo and received his master's degree in mathematics at the University of Oslo in 1956. His thesis on abstract probability theory was entitled "Theoretical Aspects of Monte Carlo methods". Nygaard worked full-time at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment from 1948 to 1960, in computing and programming (1948–1954) and operational research (1952–1960). From 1957 to 1960, he was head of the first operations research groups in the Norwegian defense establishment. He was cofounder and first chairman of the Norwegian Operational Research Society (1959–1964). In 1960, he was hired by the Norwegian Computing Center (NCC), responsible for building up the NCC as a research institute in the 1960s, becoming its Director of Research in 1962.

Object-oriented programming With Ole-Johan Dahl, he developed the initial ideas for object-oriented programming (OOP) in the 1960s at the Norwegian Computing Center (Norsk Regnesentral (NR)) as part of the Simula I (1961–1965) and Simula 67 (1965–1968) simulation programming languages, which began as an extended variant and superset of ALGOL 60. The languages introduced the core concepts of object-oriented programming: objects, classes, inheritance, virtual quantities, and multi-threaded (quasi-parallel) program execution. In 2004, the Association Internationale pour les Technologies Objets (AITO) established an annual prize in the name of Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard to honor their pioneering work on object-orientation. This Dahl–Nygaard Prize is awarded annually to two individuals that have made significant technical contributions to the field of object-orientation. The work should be in the spirit of the pioneer conceptual and/or implementation work of Dahl and Nygaard which shaped the present view of object-oriented programming. The prize is presented each year at the ECOOP conference. The prize consists of two awards given to a senior and a junior professional. He conducted research for Norwegian trade unions on planning, control, and data processing, all evaluated in light of the objectives of organised labour (1971–1973), working together with Olav Terje Bergo. His other research and development work included the social impact of computer technology, and the general system description language DELTA (1973–1975), working with Erik Holbaek-Hanssen and Petter Haandlykken. Nygaard was a professor at Aarhus University, Denmark (1975–1976) and then became professor emeritus at the University of Oslo (part-time from 1977, full-time 1984–1996). His work in Aarhus and Oslo included research and education in system development and the social impact of computer technology, and became the foundation of the Scandinavian School in System Development, which is closely linked to the field of participatory design. Starting in 1976, he was engaged in developing and (since 1986) implementing the general object-oriented programming language BETA, together with Bent Bruun Kristensen, Ole Lehrmann Madsen, and Birger Møller-Pedersen. The language is now available on a wide range of computers.

Later career In the first half of the 1980s, Nygaard was chairman of the steering committee of the Scandinavian research program System Development and Profession Oriented Languages (SYDPOL), coordinating research and supporting working groups in system development, language research, and artificial intelligence. Also in the 1980s, he was chairman of the steering committee for the Cost-13 (European Common Market Commission)-financed research project on the extensions of profession-oriented languages necessary when artificial intelligence and information technology are becoming part of professional work. Nygaard's research from 1995 to 1999 was related to distributed systems. He was the leader of General Object-Oriented Distributed Systems (GOODS), a three-year Norwegian Research Council-supported project starting in 1997, aiming at enriching object-oriented languages and system development methods by new basic concepts that make it possible to describe the relation between layered and/or distributed programs and the computer hardware and people carrying out these computer programs. The GOODS team also included Haakon Bryhni, Dag Sjøberg, and Ole Smørdal. Nygaard's final research interests were studies of the introductory teaching of programming, and creating a process-oriented conceptual platform for informatics. These subjects are to be developed in a new research project named Comprehensive Object-Oriented Learning (COOL), together with several international test sites. He was giving lectures and courses on these subjects in Norway and elsewhere. In November 1999, he became chair of an advisory committee on Broadband Communication for the Norwegian Department for Municipal and Regional Affairs. He held a part-time position at Simula Research Laboratory from 2001, when the research institute was opened.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kristen Nygaard

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kristen Nygaard claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kristen Nygaard before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kristen Nygaard ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kristen Nygaard

In research: Kristen Nygaard appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kristen Nygaard in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kristen Nygaard is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1926 births, 2002 deaths, Academic staff of the University of Oslo, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kristen Nygaard outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kristen Nygaard in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kristen Nygaard means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kristen Nygaard out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kristen Nygaard in simple terms?

Why does Kristen Nygaard matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kristen Nygaard?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kristen Nygaard.