| Birth Date: | 14 September 1928 |
| Birth Place: | Mülheim an der Ruhr |
| Citizenship: | Germany |
| Fields: | Mathematics Computer science |
| Workplaces: | Technische Universität Darmstadt Oak Ridge National Laboratory Primasoft |
| Education: | University of Bonn (1951) |
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| Thesis1 Year: | and |
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| Known For: | ALGOL 58 |
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Hermann Bottenbruch (14 September 1928 – 20 May 2019) was a German mathematician and computer scientist.[1]
Bottenbruch grew up in German: [[Müllheim|Mülheim an der Ruhr]]. Toward the end of World War II, he served as a German: [[Luftwaffenhelfer|flakhelfer]]. In 1947, he began the study of mathematics at the German: [[University of Bonn|Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn]] where he graduated in 1951. Following graduation, he joined the staff of the Institute for Applied Mathematics at the German: [[Technische Universität Darmstadt]] (TU Darmstadt). The institute was founded by Alwin Walther. Bottenbruch earned his doctorate there in 1957.
In the same year on Walther's recommendation he joined the international working group to develop a new programming language. This language was intended to combine then current understanding of programming languages into one standard. According to Friedrich Bauer, Bottenbruch coined the name ALGOL, at least for Germany, from the English Algorithmic Language. In 1958, the members of the working group met at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), including Friedrich L. Bauer, Bottenbruch, Heinz Rutishauser, Klaus Samelson, John Backus, Charles Katz, Alan Perlis, and Joseph Henry Wegstein. The result of their deliberations was ALGOL 58.
In 1960 and 1961, Bottenbruch worked in the United States at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). After that, he took a leading position in German industry where, among other things, he served as a specialist in the field of flue-gas stack (industrial chimney) construction. In 1994, he founded his own company, Primasoft GmbH, in the German city of Oberhausen, providing information technology consulting including databases.[2]