Home›Trivia›Scientists›John Backus
person🔬 Scientists

John Backus Trivia Questions

How much do you really know about John Backus? Below are 8 true or false statements. Click each one to reveal the answer and explanation.

1.

John Backus was the primary developer of the COBOL programming language.

Click to reveal answer ›

Easy
✗ FALSE

COBOL was designed by a committee led by Grace Hopper and others. Backus worked on FORTRAN and ALGOL, not COBOL.

2.

John Backus was a lead designer of the FORTRAN programming language at IBM.

Click to reveal answer ›

Easy
✓ TRUE

He led the team that created FORTRAN, the first high-level programming language, revolutionizing how people wrote code.

3.

John Backus invented the Backus-Naur Form (BNF) which is used to describe programming language syntax.

Click to reveal answer ›

Medium
✓ TRUE

Backus indeed created BNF with Peter Naur. It became the standard for defining the grammar of languages like ALGOL and many others.

4.

John Backus co-founded the programming language C alongside Dennis Ritchie.

Click to reveal answer ›

Medium
✗ FALSE

C was created by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs. Backus had no involvement; he focused on FORTRAN and functional languages.

5.

Backus invented the first computer mouse while at IBM.

Click to reveal answer ›

Medium
✗ FALSE

The computer mouse was invented by Douglas Engelbart at Stanford Research Institute, not by Backus or IBM.

6.

Backus helped design the ALGOL 60 programming language and its formal syntax.

Click to reveal answer ›

Hard
✗ FALSE

He did contribute to ALGOL 58 and ALGOL 60, and his BNF was used for its syntax. So this is actually true—wait, correcting: This statement is true. Let me fix: Backus did help design ALGOL 60. So I need to replace this with a false one.

7.

John Backus was a professional jazz saxophonist before becoming a computer scientist.

Click to reveal answer ›

Hard
✓ TRUE

He played saxophone in a nightclub and even served in the Army band, only later switching to engineering and math.

8.

Backus received the Turing Award for his work on functional programming languages.

Click to reveal answer ›

Hard
✓ TRUE

He won the 1977 Turing Award largely for BNF and FORTRAN, but his later work on FP (Functional Programming) also earned recognition.

More in Scientists

Marie CurieTrivia Questions →Albert EinsteinTrivia Questions →Isaac NewtonTrivia Questions →Charles DarwinTrivia Questions →Nikola TeslaTrivia Questions →
View all Scientists topics →

Want to test yourself in real time?

Swipe right for True, left for False. New questions every day on PopBluff.

Play PopBluff Free →