Edge 172— November 1, 2005
(2,800 words)

LAURENCE ABBOTT, for using mathematical modeling to study the neural networks that are responsible for our actions and behaviors.

DAVID BAILEY (Peter Borwein, and Simon Plouffe), for their 1997 work on the BBP algorithm, an exact computation of any digit of PI without computing previous digits.

CHARLES H. BENNETT, for his many ongoing contributions to the physics of information, including reversible computation, quantum cryptography, quantum teleportation, and quantum communication theory.

PETER J BENTLEY for "Digital Gardening" — taking the first steps in creating the new science of digital horticulture...by allowing programs to evolve and grow instead of being designed.

CYNTHIA BREAZEAL, for designing sociable robots that humans will accept as one of their own.

SERGEY BRIN, For achieving practical scaling in social software.

GREGORY CHAITIN, for extraordinary insights into the nature of mathematical truth, building on the seminal work of Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing.

NOAM CHOMSKY, for the minimalist program, explaining language as an optimal solution to the interface between sound and meaning.

MARTIN DAVIS, gatekeeper of computability.

DAVID DEUTSCH, for expanding our understanding of the notion of computation in the context of the deepest questions in the foundations of mathematics and physics.

DAVID DEUTSCH, for the enormous potential of quantum computing in studying the architecture of the brain.

J. DOYNE FARMER & NORMAN H. PACKARD, for their work at the forefront of the sciences of prediction.

IAN FOSTER, for developing advanced distributed computing ("Grid") technologies, computational science efforts applying these tools to problems in areas ranging from the analysis of data from physics experiments to remote access to earthquake engineering facilities, and the Globus open source Grid software project.

DAVID GEDYE, the computer scientist who co-conceived of SETI@home, the distributed computing effort for finding extraterrestrial intelligence.

DAVID GELERNTER, for fundamental contributions to both the technical and cultural sides of computation. He continues to expand our knowledge of parallel computation and the nature of the human experience of information technology.

DAVID HAUSSLER, for pioneering work in the fields of computational learning theory and bioinformatics, and for establishing strong and productive interdisciplinary interactions between computer scientists and molecular biologists.

JEFF HAWKINS, for advancing AI research and Brain research by proposing the first plausible common cortical algorithm: the hierarchical temporal predictive memory.

JOHN HOLLAND, for genetic algorithms, which not only demonstrate the creative power of the basic Darwinian algorithmic process, but provide a fundamental engine to drive the vehicles now beginning to explore the space of software applications whose designs can evolve without further intervention by software engineers.

BREWSTER KAHLE, for his pioneering efforts in online publishing, search engines and the archiving of the World Wide Web.

STUART KAUFFMAN, for work on the dynamical-computational foundations of cell biology.

HIROAKE KITANO, for seminal work in genetic algorithms, artificial life and multi-agent systems before pioneering and leading the field of computational systems biology and establishing two ERATO laboratories.

JARON LANIER, for being a fountain of creativity, a voice defining a new digital humanism, and an exceedingly useful contrarian.

SETH LLOYD, for turning quantum computers from dream into device.

BENOIT MANDELBROT, for developing the multi-fractal theory for times series.

NORMAN MARGOLUS, for the invention of reversible cellular automata and for the Margolus-Levitin theorem, the fundamental physical limit for the speed of computation.

READ MONTAGUE, for creating a new computational architecture of mind, value computing, that underlies a revolution in our understanding of humans.

GENE MYERS, for his work in leading the team for algorithm development that enabled large eukaryotic genomies to be sequences by the using the whole genome shotgun technique.

SRINIVAS NARAYANAN, for the development of executing schemas, a major advance in neural computation that has permitted the contemporary neural theory of language to come into being.

DONALD NORMAN, for exploring and extending the complex space limned by computation on one side and design and enjoyment on the other.

CHARLES OFRIA, for the experimental study of digital organisms to improve our understanding of how natural evolution works.

LARRY PAGE, for having the right idea at the right time and best extending computation into the real world. Inside the last decade, no one else even comes close for impact

ERIC PAULOS, for pushing the boundaries of technology as human extension in tele-robotics, atmosphere, communications, and feedback mechanisms.

JORDAN POLLACK, for pioneering physical instantiations of deeply adaptive systems.

THOMAS S. RAY, for pioneering the computer simulation of evolution of populations of living creatures in an evolving ecosystem.

EHUD SHAPIRO, for building a molecular Turing machine that works.

PETER SHOR, for his discovery of revolutionary algorithms for quantum computation, which will hasten the day when this fundamentally new mode of computation becomes practicable.

LARRY SMARR, for prototyping the information infrastructure of the 21st Century.

J. CRAIG VENTER, for reengineering the information systems of biology and pioneering the field of synthetic genomics.

J. CRAIG VENTER, whose work is (a) outstandingly important, (b) intellectually exciting, and (c) based on advances in information processing in addition to advances in chemical hardware.

J. CRAIG VENTER, for the shotgun sequencing technique, which revolutionized genetic analysis and thus biology and medicine.

GEORGE VON DASSOW, for providing the first working model of a real genetic network, thereby demonstrating that the embryo is computable.

JACK WISDOM, for illuminating, through his seminal work in both analytical and computational celestial dynamics, the role that dynamical chaos plays in the long-term evolution of the solar system, with far-reaching consequences for a diverse range of topics including the evolution of climate, the possibility of life on Mars, and the origin of life on Earth.

STEPHEN WOLFRAM for three seminal contributions: (a) pioneering the study of complexity and complex systems; (b)developing the programming software (Mathematica) that changed the manner in which much of computational science is conducted; (c) developing the case for Computation Science in A New Kind of Scienc

STEPHEN WOLFRAM, for asking what the very simplest programs actually do — and establishing their systematic study as a field of basic science.