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Home/Magazine Archive/June 2020 (Vol. 63, No. 6)/What Do DDT and Computing Have in Common?/Abstract

Editor's letter

What Do DDT and Computing Have in Common?

By Andrew A. Chien
Communications of the ACM, June 2020, Vol. 63 No. 6, Pages 5-6
10.1145/3397339
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Writing on the 50^th Earth Day brings to mind the origins of U.S. environmental movement.

DDT is, of course, Bis(4-chlorophenyl)- 1,1,1-trichloroethane, perhaps the most effective insecticide ever invented. DDT was used widely with remarkable effectiveness in the 1940s and 1950s to combat malaria, typhus, and the other insect-borne human diseases. Its efficacy was unsurpassed in insect control for crop and livestock production, and even villages and homes. In short, it was a wonder chemical.⁷

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