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===Symbolic computation===
===Symbolic computation===
Gosper was the first person to realize the possibilities of [[symbolic computation]] on a computer as a mathematics research tool,{{cn|date=June 2016}} whereas computer methods were previously limited to purely numerical methods. In particular, this research resulted in his work on [[continued fraction]]<ref name="contfrac">{{cite web |url=https://perl.plover.com/yak/cftalk/INFO/gosper.txt |title=Continued Fraction Arithmetic |author-last=Gosper |author-first=Bill |author-link=Bill Gosper |access-date=August 2, 2018}}</ref> representations of real numbers and [[Gosper's algorithm]] for finding closed form [[Hypergeometric series|hypergeometric]] identities.
Gosper was the first person to realize the possibilities of [[symbolic computation]] on a computer as a mathematics research tool,{{cn|date=June 2016}} whereas computer methods were previously limited to purely numerical methods. In particular, this research resulted in his work on [[continued fraction]]<ref name="contfrac">{{cite web |url=https://perl.plover.com/yak/cftalk/INFO/gosper.txt |title=Continued Fraction Arithmetic |author-last=Gosper |author-first=Bill |author-link=Bill Gosper |access-date=August 2, 2018}}</ref> representations of real numbers and [[Gosper's algorithm]] for finding closed form [[Hypergeometric series|hypergeometric]] identities.<ref name = "NKS note c">''[[A New Kind of Science]]'' [https://wolframscience.com/nks/notes-3-12--history-of-experimental-mathematics/]</ref>


In 1985, Gosper briefly held the world record for computing the most digits of [[pi#Rapidly convergent series|pi]] with 17 million digits.<ref>{{cite book |author-last1=Arndt |author-first1=Jörg |author-last2=Haenel |author-first2=Christoph |title=Pi Unleashed |publisher=Springer-Verlag |date=2006 |isbn=978-3-540-66572-4<!--isbn only volume 1--> |url=https://books.google.com/?id=QwwcmweJCDQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false |pages=104, 206}} English translation by Catriona and David Lischka. Record was in 1985.</ref> See [[chronology of computation of π]].
In 1985, Gosper briefly held the world record for computing the most digits of [[pi#Rapidly convergent series|pi]] with 17 million digits.<ref>{{cite book |author-last1=Arndt |author-first1=Jörg |author-last2=Haenel |author-first2=Christoph |title=Pi Unleashed |publisher=Springer-Verlag |date=2006 |isbn=978-3-540-66572-4<!--isbn only volume 1--> |url=https://books.google.com/?id=QwwcmweJCDQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false |pages=104, 206}} English translation by Catriona and David Lischka. Record was in 1985.</ref> See [[chronology of computation of π]].

Revision as of 21:46, 14 October 2020

Ralph William Gosper Jr.
Macsyma, Inc.

Ralph William Gosper Jr. (born April 26, 1943), known as Bill Gosper, is an American mathematician and programmer.

Lisp community.[2]

Becoming a hacker

In high school, Gosper was interested in model rockets until one of his friends was injured in a rocketry accident and contracted a fatal brain infection.[3] Gosper enrolled in MIT in 1961, and he received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from MIT in 1965 despite becoming disaffected with the mathematics department because of their anti-computer attitude.[3]

In his second year at MIT, Gosper took a programming course from

MIT AI Lab
.

His contributions to computational mathematics include

Macsyma, Inc.
on commercial versions of Macsyma.

In 1974, he moved to Stanford University, where he lectured and worked with Donald Knuth.[3]

Since that time, he has worked at or consulted for

Macsyma Inc.

Key contributions

Conway's Game of Life

He became intensely interested in the Game of Life shortly after John Horton Conway had proposed it. Conway conjectured the existence of infinitely growing patterns, and offered a reward for an example. Gosper was the first to find such a pattern, the glider gun, and won the prize.[4] Gosper was also the originator of the Hashlife algorithm that can speed up the computation of Life patterns by many orders of magnitude.

Packing problems

Gosper has created numerous

packing problem puzzles, such as "Twubblesome Twelve".[5]

Symbolic computation

Gosper was the first person to realize the possibilities of

hypergeometric identities.[7]

In 1985, Gosper briefly held the world record for computing the most digits of pi with 17 million digits.[8] See chronology of computation of π.

Space-filling curves

In the continuity of early 20th century examples of

Peano-Gosper curve, before engaging with variations on the Harter-Heighway dragon.[9] In the late 80s, Gosper independently discovered the Gosper-Lafitte triangle.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ Bill Gosper Archived January 10, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Vintage Computer Festival. Accessed January 3, 2007.
  2. ^ Levy, Steven, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, (1984)
  3. ^ a b c Albers, Donald J.; Alexanderson, Gerald L.; Reid, Constance, eds. (1990), "Bill Gosper", More Mathematical People, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, pp. 100–117.
  4. ISBN 0-393-02023-1
    .
  5. ISBN 978-0-76532753-6
    .
  6. ^ Gosper, Bill. "Continued Fraction Arithmetic". Retrieved August 2, 2018.
  7. ^ A New Kind of Science [1]
  8. ISBN 978-3-540-66572-4
    . English translation by Catriona and David Lischka. Record was in 1985.
  9. ^ Gosper, Bill. "Plane-Filling Functions vs. Space-Filling Curves". Retrieved November 1, 2019.
  10. ^ "Distribution of nonempty triangles inside a fractal rep-4-tile". The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. 1995.

External links

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