Clifford A. Pickover

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Clifford A. Pickover

Clifford Alan Pickover (born August 15, 1957 ) is an American author of popular science books on mathematics and natural sciences and a science journalist .

biography

Pickover studied at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and received his PhD in biochemistry (structural investigation of proteins with X-rays) from Yale University in 1982 . He has been with IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center since 1982 . First as a scientist in speech synthesis (and the development of a graphics workstation for language studies TUSK), later as editor of the IBM Journal of Research and Development.

Pickover stalks in the Mandelbrot crowd

He had a long math column in Discover Magazine and a column in Odyssey magazine, which he is also an associate editor of. He is co-editor of Computers and Graphics. He is the author of numerous technical articles and popular science books, in which computer graphics methods are often applied to a wide variety of fields. He also holds numerous patents. Pickover also wrote science fiction books and his popular science books, initially mostly about patterns in mathematics and nature as in fractals of various kinds and in chaos physics, later often revolved around the border areas of science and religion.

In mathematics and entertainment mathematics, for example, the following are named by or after him:

  • Pickover stalks (one configuration in the Mandelbrot set )
  • Vampire numbers
  • Factorion Numbers
  • Juggler Sequences

Fonts

Non-fiction

German editions:

  • With the eyes of the computer. Fantastic worlds from the mind of the machine. Market and Technology, 1992.
  • Alien IQ test. Ullstein TB, 1999.
  • The math and the divine. Spectrum 1999.
  • Dr. Googol's wondrous world of numbers. Diederichs, 2002.
  • The math book: From Pythagoras to the 57th dimension. 250 milestones in the history of mathematics. Librero IBP, 2014, ISBN 978-90-8998-280-3 .
  • The Physics Book: From Big Bang to Quantum Resurrection. 250 milestones in the history of physics. Librero IBP, 2014, ISBN 978-90-8998-360-2 .
  • History of medical science: from medicine man to robotic surgery - 250 milestones in the history of medicine. Librero IBP, 2014, ISBN 978-90-8998-435-7 .

English editions:

  • Computers, Pattern, Chaos, and Beauty - graphics from an unseen world. St. Martin's Press, 1990, ISBN 0-486-41709-3 .
  • Computers and the Imagination - visual adventures beyond the edge. St. Martin's Press, 1991.
  • Mazes for the Mind. St. Martin's Press, 1992.
  • Chaos in Wonderland. St. Martin's Press, 1994.
  • Keys to Infinity. Wiley, 1995.
  • Black Holes: A Traveler's Guide. Wiley, 1996.
  • The Alien IQ Test. Basic Books, 1997.
  • The Loom of God. Plenary, 1997.
  • The Science of Aliens. Basic Books, 1998.
  • Time: A Traveler's Guide. Oxford University Press, 1998.
  • Strange Brains and Genius - Secret Lives of Eccentric Scientists and Madmen. Quill, 1999.
  • Surfing through hyperspace. Oxford University Press, 1999.
  • Cryptorunes: Codes and Secret Writing. Pomegranate, 2000.
  • The Girl Who Gave Birth to Rabbits - a true medical mystery. Prometheus, 2000.
  • Wonders of Numbers. Oxford University Press, 2000.
  • Dreaming the Future - the fantastic story of prediction. Prometheus, 2001.
  • The Stars of Heaven. Oxford University Press, 2001.
  • The Zen of Magic Squares, Circles, and Stars. Princeton University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-691-11597-4 .
  • The Mathematics of Oz. Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-521-01678-9 .
  • The Paradox of God and the Science of Omniscience. St. Martin's Press, 2002, ISBN 1-4039-6457-2 .
  • Calculus and Pizza. John Wiley & Sons, 2003, ISBN 0-471-26987-5 .
  • Sex, Drugs, Einstein, and Elves - Sushi, Psychedelics, Parallel Universes and the Quest for Transcendence. Smart Publications, 2005, ISBN 1-890572-17-9 .
  • A Passion for Mathematics. John Wiley & Sons, 2005, ISBN 0-471-69098-8 .
  • The Mobius Strip. Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006, ISBN 1-56025-826-8 .
  • A Beginner's Guide to Immortality. Thunder's Mouth Press, 2007, ISBN 978-1-56025-984-8 .
  • The Heaven Virus. Lulu, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4303-2969-5 .
  • Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them. Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-533611-5 .
  • Jews in Hyperspace. Kindle Edition, 2009.
  • The Loom of God. Sterling Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4027-6400-4 .
  • The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics. Sterling Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4027-5796-9 .
  • The Physics Book: From the Big Bang to Quantum Resurrection. Sterling Publishing, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4027-7861-2 .
  • The Medical Book: From Witch Doctors to Robot Surgeons. Sterling Publishing, 2012, ISBN 978-1-4027-8585-6 .

Every year he publishes the Mind-Bending Puzzles calendar.

Science fiction

  • with Piers Anthony : Spider Legs . Tor, 1998.
  • Liquid Earth. The Lighthouse Press, 2002.
  • The Lobotomy Club. The Lighthouse Press, 2002.
  • Sushi Never Sleeps. The Lighthouse Press, 2002.
  • Egg drop soup. The Lighthouse Press, 2002, ISBN 0-9714827-9-9 .

As editor

  • Spiral Symmetry. World Scientific, 1992, ISBN 981-02-0615-1 .
  • Visions of the Future: Art, technology and computing in the 21st century. St. Martin's Press, 1993.
  • Frontiers of Scientific Visualization. Wiley, 1994.
  • Future Health: Computers & Medicine in the 21st Century. St. Martin's Press, 1995.
  • The Pattern Book: Fractals, Art, and Nature. World Scientific, 1995.
  • Visualizing Biological Information. World Scientific, 1995.
  • Fractal Horizons. St. Martin's Press, 1996.
  • Chaos and Fractals. Elsevier, 1998.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For example: 1260 = 21 × 60. The same digits appear to the right and left of the equal sign. The two factors have half as many digits as their product, the vampire number. → cf. Eric W. Weisstein : Vampire Numbers . In: MathWorld (English).
  2. ↑ For example: 145 = 1! + 4! + 5 !. A natural number that is equal to the sum of the factorials of its digits. → cf. Eric W. Weisstein : Factorion . In: MathWorld (English).
  3. ↑ Defined recursively by the square root of the previous number, if it is even, or the square root of the third power of the previous number if it is odd. The sequences have ascending and descending patterns as in juggling. → cf. Eric W. Weisstein : Juggling Consequences . In: MathWorld (English).
personal data
SURNAME Pickover, Clifford A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pickover, Clifford Alan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American non-fiction author
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1957