Scott Aaronson
Encyclopedia
Scott Joel Aaronson is a theoretical computer scientist
and faculty member in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
.
from Cornell University
in 2000, and his Ph.D.
at the University of California, Berkeley
in 2004, under the supervision of Umesh Vazirani
.
and the University of Waterloo
, he took a faculty position at MIT in 2007.
His primary area of research is quantum computing and computational complexity theory
more generally.
, which catalogs all classes of computational complexity
. He is the author of the much-read blog
"Shtetl-Optimized" as well as the essay
Who Can Name The Bigger Number?. The latter work, widely distributed in academic
computer science
, uses the concept of Busy Beaver Numbers as described by Tibor Radó
to illustrate the limits of computability in a pedagogic environment. He's also taught a graduate-level survey course called Quantum Computing Since Democritus, for which the notes are available online and which is expected to be published as a book by Cambridge University Press. It weaves together seemingly disparate topics into a cohesive whole, including quantum mechanics, complexity, free will, time travel, the anthropic principle and many others. Many of these interdisciplinary applications of computational complexity were later fleshed out in his article "Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity". An article of Aaronson's, "The Limits of Quantum Computers", was published in Scientific American
, and he was a guest speaker at the 2007 Foundational Questions in Science Institute conference. Aaronson is frequently cited in non-academic press, such as Science News
, The Age
, ZDNet
, Slashdot
, New Scientist
, The New York Times
, and Forbes Magazine.
of plagiarizing a lecture he wrote on quantum mechanics
in an advertisement of theirs. He alleged that a commercial for Ricoh Australia by Sydney-based agency Love Communications appropriated content almost verbatim from the lecture. Aaronson received an apologetic email from the agency in which
they claimed to have sought legal advice and did not believe that they were in violation of his copyright. Unsatisfied, Aaronson pursued the matter, and the agency settled the dispute without admitting wrongdoing by making a charitable contribution to two science organizations of his choice.
Theoretical computer science
Theoretical computer science is a division or subset of general computer science and mathematics which focuses on more abstract or mathematical aspects of computing....
and faculty member in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
.
Education
He obtained his B.Sc. in computer scienceComputer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
from Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
in 2000, and his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
in 2004, under the supervision of Umesh Vazirani
Umesh Vazirani
Umesh Virkumar Vazirani is the Roger A. Strauch Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and the director of the Berkeley Quantum Computation Center. Vazirani was himself a Ph.D. student at Berkeley, receiving his Ph.D. in 1986 under the...
.
Career
After postdoctorates at the Institute for Advanced StudyInstitute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...
and the University of Waterloo
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
, he took a faculty position at MIT in 2007.
His primary area of research is quantum computing and computational complexity theory
Computational complexity theory
Computational complexity theory is a branch of the theory of computation in theoretical computer science and mathematics that focuses on classifying computational problems according to their inherent difficulty, and relating those classes to each other...
more generally.
Popular work
He is a founder of the Complexity Zoo wikiWiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
, which catalogs all classes of computational complexity
Computational Complexity
Computational Complexity may refer to:*Computational complexity theory*Computational Complexity...
. He is the author of the much-read blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
"Shtetl-Optimized" as well as the essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
Who Can Name The Bigger Number?. The latter work, widely distributed in academic
Academia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
, uses the concept of Busy Beaver Numbers as described by Tibor Radó
Tibor Radó
Tibor Radó was a Hungarian mathematician who moved to the USA after World War I. He was born in Budapest and between 1913 and 1915 attended the Polytechnic Institute. In World War I, he became a First Lieutenant in the Hungarian Army and was captured on the Russian Front...
to illustrate the limits of computability in a pedagogic environment. He's also taught a graduate-level survey course called Quantum Computing Since Democritus, for which the notes are available online and which is expected to be published as a book by Cambridge University Press. It weaves together seemingly disparate topics into a cohesive whole, including quantum mechanics, complexity, free will, time travel, the anthropic principle and many others. Many of these interdisciplinary applications of computational complexity were later fleshed out in his article "Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity". An article of Aaronson's, "The Limits of Quantum Computers", was published in Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
, and he was a guest speaker at the 2007 Foundational Questions in Science Institute conference. Aaronson is frequently cited in non-academic press, such as Science News
Science News
Science News is an American bi-weekly magazine devoted to short articles about new scientific and technical developments, typically gleaned from recent scientific and technical journals. Science News has been published since 1922 by Society for Science & the Public, a non-profit organization...
, The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
, ZDNet
ZDNet
ZDNet is a business technology news website published by CBS Interactive, along with TechRepublic and SmartPlanet. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991 as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication owned by CNET...
, Slashdot
Slashdot
Slashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
, New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, and Forbes Magazine.
Intellectual property
Aaronson was the subject of media attention in October 2007, when he accused an advertising agencyAdvertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
of plagiarizing a lecture he wrote on quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
in an advertisement of theirs. He alleged that a commercial for Ricoh Australia by Sydney-based agency Love Communications appropriated content almost verbatim from the lecture. Aaronson received an apologetic email from the agency in which
they claimed to have sought legal advice and did not believe that they were in violation of his copyright. Unsatisfied, Aaronson pursued the matter, and the agency settled the dispute without admitting wrongdoing by making a charitable contribution to two science organizations of his choice.
External links
- Aaronson at the Mathematics Genealogy ProjectMathematics Genealogy ProjectThe Mathematics Genealogy Project is a web-based database for the academic genealogy of mathematicians. As of September, 2010, it contained information on approximately 145,000 mathematical scientists who contribute to "research-level mathematics"...
- Aaronson at the ACM PortalACM PortalThe ACM Portal is an online service of the Association for Computer Machinery. Its core are two main sections: ACM Digital Library , and the Guide to Computing Literature....
- Aaronson's PhD thesis
- Aaronson at the Scientific Commons
- Aaronson at CiteSeerCiteSeerCiteSeer was a public search engine and digital library for scientific and academic papers. It is often considered to be the first automated citation indexing system and was considered a predecessor of academic search tools such as Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search. It was replaced by...
- Aaronson's AmazonAmazon.comAmazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
reviewer profile - Aaronson's blog
- Aaronson's Qwiki profile
- Aaronson homepage
- Video (with mp3 available) of conversation with Aaronson and Eliezer YudkowskyEliezer YudkowskyEliezer Shlomo Yudkowsky is an American artificial intelligence researcher concerned with the singularity and an advocate of friendly artificial intelligence, living in Redwood City, California.- Biography :...
on Bloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers...