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General Science, Mathematics, and Technology

Computers

Where did the term “bug” originate?

The slang term “bug” is used to describe problems and errors occurring in computer programs. The term may have originated during the early 1940s at Harvard University, when computer pioneer Grace Murray Hopper discovered that a dead moth had caused the breakdown of a machine on which she was working. When asked what she was doing while removing the corpse with tweezers, she replied, “I’m debugging the machine.” The moth’s carcass, taped to a page of notes, is preserved with the trouble log notebook at the Virginia Naval Museum.



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