Edward Fredkin
American physicist and computer scientist (1934–2023) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Edward Fredkin (October 2, 1934 – June 13, 2023)[1] was an American computer scientist, physicist and businessman who was an early pioneer of digital physics.[2]
Edward Fredkin | |
---|---|
Born | (1934-10-02)October 2, 1934 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Died | June 13, 2023(2023-06-13) (aged 88) Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Alma mater | California Institute of Technology |
Known for | Fredkin gate Fredkin's paradox Billiard-ball computer Second-order cellular automaton Trie data structure |
Awards | Dickson Prize in Science 1984 |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Computer science, physics, business |
Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Capital Technologies, Inc. |
Fredkin's primary contributions included work on reversible computing and cellular automata. While Konrad Zuse's book, Calculating Space (1969), mentioned the importance of reversible computation, the Fredkin gate represented the essential breakthrough.[3] In more recent work, he used the term digital philosophy (DP).
During his career, Fredkin was a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Fairchild Distinguished Scholar at Caltech, a distinguished career professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and a Research Professor of Physics at Boston University.