Inspired by the life and work of Simon Newcomb, his career paralleled the huge advances in astronomy brought about by the advent of the electronic computer.
[1] Born on a farm near Greenville, Rhode Island, Gerald's parents were Richard R. Clemence and his wife, Lora, née Oatley.
In his own words, "as a recreation", he took the civil service examination for the job description "astronomer" and finished first out of fifty candidates, winning appointment at the United States Naval Observatory.
George William Hill had computed the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn in the nineteenth century and Newcomb had completed the work for the other planets of the Solar System.
However, there was now almost fifty years of new observational data and Clemence set to recalculate the orbital elements of Mercury to provide more accurate predictions.
[4] Wallace John Eckert was appointed as director of the Nautical Almanac Office in 1940 and immediately imported his enthusiasm for using punched card machines for scientific calculation.
His own original research necessarily took a lower profile but he continued to publish on relativity, astronomical constants and time measurement, as well as collaborating on two text books.