Bug

In computer science, the term bug refers to an error or flaw sometimes found to be within a hardware component, but more commonly found to be an error in the writing of the coding of a software program. This causes the program to freeze, or crash. A major error, or bug, can cause the entire computer to crash (totally stop functioning).

Some say the term bug originated from the early days of computers at a lab at Harvard University. On the 9th September 1945, a staff member discovered a moth had flown between some relay contacts in the Mark II computer and jammed it. The laboratory log shows the computer was "debugged," and this term is now in common use.

That may well be the first time the term bug was used in reference to computers. But the use the term bug in reference to an error or problem in the electrical or mechanical fields had been coined by the American inventor, Thomas Edison, in the mid to late 1800's.

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