THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 10, 1994 TAG: 9412100178
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
Mild-mannered Thomas Nicely was content with his quiet life as a mathematics professor at little-known Lynchburg College, toiling 60 hours a week teaching freshmen, grading exams and researching number theory.
Then, he found a flaw in Intel Corp.'s top-of-the-line Pentium microprocessor, and publicly embarrassed the world's largest computer chip-maker. And now, he's enjoying - or at least tolerating - his moment of fame.
``Mathematicians in general have very private lives,'' Nicely drawled in a thick West Virginia accent. He was a coal miner's son and the first in his family to go to college.
``I find it kind of embarrassing to see my own name in print.''
Nicely discovered through an equation on his math department's three Pentium systems that Intel's chip flubbed some calculations. It took him months to prove the chip was faulty, and the finding quickly became public. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company, which had actually discovered the error on its own but decided not to go public with it, has apologized.
``He obviously knows his mathematics,'' Intel spokesman John Thompson conceded.
Now, when Nicely's phone rings, it's The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN or National Public Radio on the line. Magazines from the Netherlands, France and Great Britain and an Australian newspaper also have called.
The story of this unlikely celebrity began in June, when he noticed that on some division problems, his computers churned out faulty numbers beginning with the ninth place to the right of the decimal point. That discrepancy may seem very minor, but ``to me, it was a huge error,'' Nicely said.
Lynchburg College, a private, 1,200-student liberal arts school in central Virginia, has no graduate program in math. It isn't exactly MIT or Stanford as far as computer facilities go. Nicely used computers at an office supply store to test his hypothesis that the problem was in the chip.
When the error surfaced on the store's computers, he knew he was right.
So on Oct. 24, Nicely called Intel's technical support line and was informed no one knew of the problem. He left messages and called back, but six days went by and he heard nothing.
That's when Nicely e-mailed several colleagues, presenting them with his findings. One of the people he messaged decided to post the findings to the world on the Internet, a global telecommunications network.
``Then suddenly I heard from Intel again,'' Nicely said, laughing. ``They seemed very anxious to please me at that point.''
Intel officials then asked him to send them a copy of his program. The company also sent him two new chips, which he says have been running his research program flawlessly.
Nicely, who attended West Virginia University as an undergraduate and got his doctorate from the University of Virginia, said he's surprised the bug wasn't discovered by someone else, especially a researcher at a major institution.
``It indicates to me that a lot of people are not checking their work.''
In fact, Intel's own technicians detected the error in July. But the company decided not to go public with the information, reasoning that only a slight number of users would ever encounter the problem.
Nicely won't accept that explanation.
``It's a very simple-looking problem that it's getting wrong,'' Nicely said.
Nicely and Intel may be making amends, however. They have discussed the possibility of Nicely working as a free-lance consultant. Nicely hopes Lynchburg College will get free computers out of the deal. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS Photo
Thomas Nicely was checking an equation when he noticed the
Pentium-chip computers at his college were flubbing some
calculations, at the ninth place to the right of the decimal point.
by CNB