Calling computers names in Swedish

I very much enjoyed reading Jim Fleming’s article on Carl-Gustaf Rossby and the seminal contributions Rossby made to meteorology (Physics Today, January 2017, page 50 ). However, the otherwise excellent article has two errors.

Something must have gotten lost in translation to cause Fleming to claim that “Rossby pursued numerical weather prediction in Sweden in an era in which there was no Swedish word for digital computer.” With applied mathematician Germund Dahlquist, Rossby developed a weather model for the Binär Elektronisk Sekvens Kalkylator (BESK; Binary Electronic Sequence Calculator). Designed and built in Sweden, BESK was the world’s fastest computer when it became operational in 1953. From September 1954, BESK weather simulations enabled routine 24-hour national forecasts.

The funding agency for the BESK project, Matematikmaskinnämnden (the Swedish Board for Computing Machinery), has a Swedish word for digital computer, matematikmaskin (literally, mathematics machine) in its name! Other contemporary Swedish terms for computer were siffermaskin (numbers machine), datamaskin (data machine), kalkylator (calculator), and the more fanciful elektronhjärna (electron brain), favored by the media. Dator, the now predominant term, was not introduced until 1968. Also, the correct abbreviation for Sveriges Meteorologiska och Hydrologiska Institut (Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute) is SMHI.