Oral history interview with Jay Wright Forrester

Jay Wright Forrester, 1918-2016, BS in electrical engineering, 1939, University of Nebraska; SM in electrical engineering, 1949, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was director of the MIT Digital Computer Laboratory, 1946-1951, and was responsible for the design and construction of Whirlwind I, one of the first high-speed digital computers. He invented magnetic core memory, which for many years was the standard memory device for digital computers. As head of the Digital Computer Division of MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, 1952-1956, he guided the planning and technical design of the Air Force SAGE system for continental air defense. In 1956 he became professor of management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where his work on the development of computer modeling and analysis of social systems led to the field now know as systems dynamics. He became Germeshausen Professor in 1972 and Germeshausen Professor emeritus and senior lecturer in 1989. His many books include Industrial Dynamics (1961), Systems Dynamics in Management Education (1985), and The City: Growth, Stagnation, and Revival (1968).