Klaus Samelson (21 December 1918^[1] – 25 May 1980) was a German mathematician, physicist, and computer pioneer in the area ofprogramming languagetranslation andpush-pop stack algorithms for sequential formula translation on computers.

He was born inStrasbourg,Alsace-Lorraine, and he lived inBreslau in his early childhood years. His elder brother was the mathematicianHans Samelson. Due to political circumstances, he waited until 1946 to studymathematics andphysics at theLudwig Maximilian University of Munich inMunich.

After graduating, he worked briefly as a high school teacher before he returned to university. In 1951, he completed hisDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in physics withFriedrich Bopp (Fritz) with a dissertation on aquantum mechanics problem posed byArnold Sommerfeld related tounipolar induction.^[2]

Samelson became interested innumerical analysis, and when Hans Piloty, an electrical engineer, and Robert Sauer, a professor of mathematics, began working together, he joined and got involved in early computers as a research associate in the Mathematical Institute of theTechnical University of Munich.

This changed his scientific career. His first publications came from Sauer's interests dealing withsupersonic speed flow and precision problems of digital computations for numerical calculations ofeigenvalues.

Soon after, Samelson's strong influence began on the development of Computer Science and Informatics as a new scientific discipline. WithFriedrich L. Bauer, who also had Fritz Bopp as his Ph.D. advisor, he studied the structure of programming languages to develop efficient algorithms for their translation and implementation. This research led to bracketed structures and it became clear to Samelson that this principle should govern the translation of programming languages and the run-time system with stack models and block structure. It was a fundamental breakthrough in how computer systems are modeled and designed.

Piloty, Bauer and Samelson had also worked on the design ofPERM, a computer based partly on theWhirlwind I concept. By 1955, the PERM was completed and they continued work that Bauer had begun in 1951 on concepts in automatic programming.

Samelson was involved with international standards in programming and informatics, and played a key role in the design ofALGOLs 58 and 60, as a member of theInternational Federation for Information Processing (IFIP)IFIP Working Group 2.1 on Algorithmic Languages and Calculi,^[3] whichspecified, supports, and maintains theprogramming languagesALGOL 60 andALGOL 68.^[4]

In 1958, he accepted a chair for mathematics at theUniversity of Mainz, and since 1963 he held a chair at the Technical University of Munich where he and Bauer, began to develop a university curriculum for informatics and computer science. He became an editor of the journalActa Informatica when it began in 1971.

• Perlis, Alan Jay; Samelson, Klaus (1958). Preliminary Report: International Algebraic Language.Communications of the ACM (Report). Vol. 1. pp. 8–22.
• Samelson, Klaus;Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig (1959). "Sequentielle Formelübersetzung" [Sequential Formula Translation].Elektronische Rechenanlagen (in German).1 (4):176–182.
• Dijkstra, Edsger Wybe; Heise, Willy;Perlis, Alan Jay; Samelson, Klaus (1959). "ALGOL Sub-Committee Report – Extensions".Communications of the ACM.2 (9): 24.
• Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig; Samelson, Klaus (1959). The problem of a common language, especially for scientific numeral work (Report). IFIP Congress. pp. 120–124.
• Backus, John Warner;Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig; Green, Julien;Katz, Charles;McCarthy, John;Perlis, Alan Jay;Rutishauser, Heinz; Samelson, Klaus;Vauquois, Bernard[in French];Wegstein, Joseph Henry;van Wijngaarden, Adriaan;Woodger, Michael (1960). Report on the Algorithmic Language ALGOL 60.Communications of the ACM (Report). Vol. 3. pp. 299–314.
• Samelson, Klaus;Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig (1960). Sequential Formula Translation, Communications of the ACM (Report). Vol. 3. pp. 76–83.
• Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig; Samelson, Klaus (April 1961). "Comments on ALGOL 60 Maintenance and Revisions".ALGOL Bulletin (12).
• Samelson, Klaus (1962). Programming Languages and their Processing (Report). IFIP Congress. pp. 487–492.
• Eickel, Jürgen[in German];Paul, Manfred[in German];Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig; Samelson, Klaus (1963). A Syntax Controlled Generator of Formal Language Processors.Communications of the ACM (Report). Vol. 6. pp. 451–455.
• Backus, John Warner;Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig; Green, Julien;Katz, Charles;McCarthy, John;Perlis, Alan Jay;Rutishauser, Heinz; Samelson, Klaus;Vauquois, Bernard[in French];Wegstein, Joseph Henry;van Wijngaarden, Adriaan;Woodger, Michael;Naur, Peter (1963). Revised Report on the Algorithmic Language ALGOL 60.Communications of the ACM (Report). Vol. 6. pp. 1–17.
• Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig; Samelson, Klaus (1976) [1975-07-23 – 1975-08-02]. Language Hierarchies and Interfaces, International Summer School (Report). Marktoberdorf, Germany: Springer.
• Samelson, Klaus (1976) [1976-08-09/12]. ECI Conference 1976, Proceedings of the 1st European Cooperation in Informatics (Report). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Springer.
• Gnatz, Rupert; Samelson, Klaus (1977) [1977-10-19/21]. Methoden der Informatik für Rechnerunterstütztes Entwerfen und Konstruieren, GI-Fachtagung (Report) (in German). Munich, Germany: Springer.
• Samelson, Klaus. Entwicklungslinien in der Informatik, GI Jahrestagung 1978 (Report) (in German). pp. 132–148.
• Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig;Broy, Manfred; Dosch, Walter; Gnatz, Rupert; Krieg-Brückner, Bernd; Laut, Alfred; Luckmann, Manfred; Matzner, Thomas;Möller, Bernhard[in German]; Partsch, Helmuth; Pepper, Peter; Samelson, Klaus; Steinbrüggen, Ralf;Wirsing, Martin; Wössner, Hans (October 1981). Programming in a Wide Spectrum Language: A Collection of Examples (Report). Science of Computer Programming. Vol. 1. Elsevier. pp. 73–114.
• Samelson, Klaus;Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig (1983)."Sequential Formula Translation (Reprint)".Communications of the ACM.26 (1):9–13.doi:10.1145/357980.357983.S2CID 555174.
• Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig;Berghammer, Rudolf;Broy, Manfred; Dosch, Walter; Geiselbrechtinger, Franz; Gnatz, Rupert; Hangel, Erich;Hesse, Wolfgang[in German]; Krieg-Brückner, Bernd; Laut, Alfred; Matzner, Thomas;Möller, Bernhard[in German]; Nickl, Friederike; Partsch, Helmuth; Pepper, Peter;Wirsing, Martin; Wössner, Hans (1986) [1985]. The Munich Project CIP: Volume I: The Wide Spectrum Language CIP-L (Report). Vol. I. Berlin, Germany:Springer-Verlag.ISBN 3-540-15187-7.

• Bauer, Friedrich Ludwig;Ershov, Andrey Petrovich;Paul, Manfred[in German];Perlis, Alan Jay (December 1980). "Klaus Samelson".Acta Informatica.15 (1). Berlin – Heidelberg, Germany: Springer:1–2.doi:10.1007/BF00269806.S2CID 35479240.
• Hashagen, Ulf[in German] (21–26 July 2004)."The History of Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing: An Interview with Fritz Bauer".Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).
• Schmidt, Gunther (2020).Rückblick auf die Anfänge der Münchner Informatik (in German).Springer Vieweg.ISBN 978-3-65828754-2.

• Klaus Samelson atDBLP Bibliography Server
• Klaus Samelson at theMathematics Genealogy Project
• Samelson-Prinzip(in German)

• 1918 births
• 1980 deaths
• German computer scientists
• Formal methods people
• Programming language designers
• Programming language researchers
• LMU Munich alumni
• Academic staff of the Technical University of Munich
• Academic staff of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

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