Edward Fredkin

Edward Fredkin ( born 1934 ) is an early pioneer of digital physics ( he used the term digital philosophy lately ). The major contributions of his work are in the field of Machine Reversible computing and Cellular. While Konrad Zuse's book Rechnender Space (1969 ) emphasized the importance of reversible computation, the Fredkin gate was the decisive breakthrough in the field.

Edward Fredkin broke a visit to the California Institute of Technology after one year and joined with 19 of the U.S. Air Force to become fighter pilot. His computer career began in 1956, when the Air Force zuwies him a job at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He worked in the early sixties at Bolt Beranek and Newman, where he wrote the PDP-1 assembler. In 1968 he continued his academic career continued as a professor at MIT. From 1971 to 1974 he was director of Project MAC. He worked for a year at the California Institute of Technology in collaboration with Richard Feynman and spent six years as a professor of physics at Boston University. He has been a professor at Carnegie- Mellon University and a visiting professor at MIT.

Fredkin founded Information International Inc. and was managing director of various companies, including for Information International, Three Rivers Computer Corporation, New England Television Corporation.

Fredkin concerned with both hardware and software. He is the inventor of the Ministries, a data structure to search for strings. Other inventions by him are the Fredkin gate and the Billiard Ball Model for reversible computing. He also conducted research in computer vision, chess and other areas of artificial intelligence. In addition, he was concerned with theoretical questions in physics and computer models of physics. He developed "Salt", a calculation model which is based on the fundamental conservation laws of physics.

Fredkin was 1983/84 awarded the Dickson Prize in Science.