Gregory Chaitin

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Gregory Chaitin
Algorithmic Information Theory
  • Chaitin's constant
  • Chaitin's algorithm
    • Scientific career
    Fields
    Institutions
    Websiteuba.academia.edu/GregoryChaitin

    Gregory John Chaitin (

    Kolmogorov, Martin-Löf, and Leonid Levin, algorithmic information theory became a foundational part of theoretical computer science, information theory, and mathematical logic.[3][4]
    It is a common subject in several computer science curricula. Besides computer scientists, Chaitin's work draws attention of many philosophers and mathematicians to fundamental problems in mathematical creativity and digital philosophy.

    Mathematics and computer science

    Gregory Chaitin is

    Jewish and he attended the Bronx High School of Science and City College of New York, where he (still in his teens) developed the theory that led to his independent discovery of algorithmic complexity.[5][6]

    Chaitin has defined

    computable
    .

    Chaitin is also the originator of using

    compiling, a process known as Chaitin's algorithm.[7]

    He was formerly a researcher at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in New York. He has written more than 10 books that have been translated to about 15 languages. He is today interested in questions of metabiology and information-theoretic formalizations of the theory of evolution, and is a member of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University.

    Other scholarly contributions

    Chaitin also writes about philosophy, especially metaphysics and philosophy of mathematics (particularly about epistemological matters in mathematics). In metaphysics, Chaitin claims that algorithmic information theory is the key to solving problems in the field of biology (obtaining a formal definition of 'life', its origin and evolution) and neuroscience (the problem of consciousness and the study of the mind).

    In recent writings, he defends a position known as

    quasi-empirical
    methodology.

    Honors

    In 1995 he was given the degree of doctor of science

    honoris causa by the University of Maine. In 2002 he was given the title of honorary professor by the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, where his parents were born and where Chaitin spent part of his youth. In 2007 he was given a Leibniz Medal[9] by Wolfram Research. In 2009 he was given the degree of doctor of philosophy honoris causa by the National University of Córdoba. He was formerly a researcher at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center and a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
    .

    Criticism

    Some philosophers and logicians disagree with the philosophical conclusions that Chaitin has drawn from his theorems related to what Chaitin thinks is a kind of fundamental arithmetic randomness.[10] The logician

    Gödel's incompleteness theorem and the alleged explanation for it that Chaitin's work represents.[11]

    Bibliography

    References

    1. ^ Gregory Chaitin (2007), Algorithmic information theory: "Chaitin Research Timeline" Archived 23 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine
    2. ^ Review of Meta Math!: The Quest for Omega, By Gregory Chaitin SIAM News, Volume 39, Number 1, January/February 2006
    3. ^ Calude, C.S. (2002). Information and Randomness: An Algorithmic Perspective. Texts in Theoretical Computer Science. An EATCS Series. Springer-Verlag.
    4. ^ R. Downey, and D. Hirschfeldt (2010), Algorithmic Randomness and Complexity, Springer-Verlag.
    5. ISBN 9780387948683
      , G.J.Chaitin had finished the Bronx High School of Science, and was an 18-year-old undergraduate student at City College of the City University of New York, when he submitted two papers.... In his [second] paper, Chaitin puts forward the notion of Kolmogorov complexity....
    6. S2CID 207698337
    7. ^ G.J. Chaitin, Register Allocation and Spilling via Graph Coloring, US Patent 4,571,678 (1986) [cited from Register Allocation on the Intel® Itanium® Architecture, p.155]
    8. arXiv:math/0303352
      .
    9. ^ Zenil, Hector "Leibniz medallion comes to life after 300 years" Anima Ex Machina, The Blog of Hector Zenil, 3 November 2007.
    10. ^ Panu Raatikainen, "Exploring Randomness and The Unknowable" Notices of the American Mathematical Society Book Review October 2001.
    11. ISBN 978-1-56881-238-0

    Further reading

    External links

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