Helaman Ferguson
Helaman Rolfe Pratt Ferguson ( born 1940 in Salt Lake City, Utah) is an American mathematician and sculptor.
Ferguson, who early lost both parents, grew up in New York City, studied mathematics and visual arts (painting, sculpture ) at a liberal arts college (Hamilton College in Clinton ) with a bachelor 's degree in 1962 and 1971 at the University of Washington in Seattle in mathematics doctorate ( Some of Harish - Chandra integers ). He then taught 17 years as professor of mathematics at Brigham Young University. 1988 to 1999 he was in Bowie (Maryland) at the Center for Computer Science. Connections to the sculpture he had by his stepfather, a stone - mason. He lives in Laurel, Maryland. In addition to his sculptural work he designs still algorithms.
He published, in particular on algorithms for operating systems, applications of discrete matrix groups and Scientific Visualization.
Together with Rodney Forcade he published in 1979 a momentous recursive algorithm for determining integer linear dependencies between real numbers. The method could find or rule out the existence of a dependency explicitly in certain upper bounds on the values of the coefficients of the linear combinations. This algorithm was filed in 2000 by SIAM Guest Editors Jack Dongarra and Francis Sullivan among the top ten algorithms of the last century. After its development by Ferguson and David H. Bailey for nonrecursive PSOS algorithm he found in 1989 first notable applications. Ferguson and Bailey improved their method 1992 proceeds to PSLQ algorithm. This has been used by Bailey and Peter Borwein among others, the detection of the formulas for the calculation of Pi. In 1999 finally gave Bailey, Ferguson and his colleague Steve Arno, a rigorous analysis of the PSLQ algorithm.
As a sculptor, Ferguson selected mathematical forms, which he previously designed on the computer. He had several solo exhibitions at universities in the U.S. and, for example, at the New York Academy of Sciences and the Mathematical Association of America in Washington, DC, as well as group exhibitions, among others in the Computer Museum in Boston and the Smithsonian Institution. One of his sculptures was ( created in 1999 as a granite sculpture in order) from the Clay Mathematics Institute selected as the logo.
With Claire Ferguson, he received the JPBM (Joint Policy Board of Mathematics ) Communication Award of SIAM. In 1999 he was the keynote speaker at the SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles.