Edward Forrest Moore was an American professor of mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 and computer science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

, the inventor of the Moore finite state machine

Moore machine

In the theory of computation, a Moore machine is a finite-state machine, whose output values are determined solely by its current state.-Name:The Moore machine is named after Edward F...

, and an early pioneer of artificial life

Artificial life

Artificial life is a field of study and an associated art form which examine systems related to life, its processes, and its evolution through simulations using computer models, robotics, and biochemistry. The discipline was named by Christopher Langton, an American computer scientist, in 1986...

.

Biography

Moore received a B.S. in chemistry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, VA in 1947 and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 in Providence, RI in June 1950. He worked at UIUC from 1950 to 1952 and was a visiting lecturer at MIT and Harvard simultaneously in 1952 and 1953. Then he worked at Bell Labs

Bell Labs

Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...

 for about 10 years. After that, he was a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

University of Wisconsin–Madison

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...

 from 1966 until he retired in 1985.

He married Elinor Constance Martin and they had three children.

Scientific Work

He was the first to use the type of finite state machine

Finite state machine

A finite-state machine or finite-state automaton , or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model used to design computer programs and digital logic circuits. It is conceived as an abstract machine that can be in one of a finite number of states...

 (FSM) that is most commonly used today, the Moore FSM. With Claude Shannon he did seminal work on computability theory

Computability theory

Computability theory, also called recursion theory, is a branch of mathematical logic that originated in the 1930s with the study of computable functions and Turing degrees. The field has grown to include the study of generalized computability and definability...

 and built reliable circuits using less reliable relays. He also spent a great deal of his later years on a fruitless effort to solve the Four Color Theorem

Four color theorem

In mathematics, the four color theorem, or the four color map theorem states that, given any separation of a plane into contiguous regions, producing a figure called a map, no more than four colors are required to color the regions of the map so that no two adjacent regions have the same color...

.

With John Myhill

John Myhill

John R. Myhill was a mathematician, born in 1923. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University under Willard Van Orman Quine in 1949. He was professor at SUNY Buffalo from 1966 until his death in 1987...

, Moore proved the Garden of Eden theorem characterizing the cellular automaton

Cellular automaton

A cellular automaton is a discrete model studied in computability theory, mathematics, physics, complexity science, theoretical biology and microstructure modeling. It consists of a regular grid of cells, each in one of a finite number of states, such as "On" and "Off"...

 rules that have patterns with no predecessor. He is also the namesake of the Moore neighborhood

Moore neighborhood

In cellular automata, the Moore neighborhood comprises the eight cells surrounding a central cell on a two-dimensional square lattice. The neighborhood is named after Edward F. Moore, a pioneer of cellular automata theory. It is one of the two most commonly used neighborhood types, the other one...

 for cellular automata, used by Conway's Game of Life

Conway's Game of Life

The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970....

, and was the first to publish on the firing squad synchronization problem

Firing squad synchronization problem

The firing squad synchronization problem is a problem in computer science and cellular automata in which the goal is to design a cellular automaton that, starting with a single active cell, eventually reaches a state in which all cells are simultaneously active...

 in cellular automata.

In a 1956 article in Scientific American

Scientific American

Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...

, he proposed "Artificial Living Plants," which would be floating factories that could create copies of themselves. They could be programmed to perform some function (extracting fresh water, harvesting minerals from seawater) for an investment that would be relatively small compared to the huge returns from the exponentially growing numbers of factories.

Moore also asked which regular graph

Regular graph

In graph theory, a regular graph is a graph where each vertex has the same number of neighbors; i.e. every vertex has the same degree or valency. A regular directed graph must also satisfy the stronger condition that the indegree and outdegree of each vertex are equal to each other...

s can have their diameter matching a simple lower bound for the problem given by a regular tree with the same degree. The graphs matching this bound were named Moore graphs by .

Publications

With Claude Shannon, before and during his time at Bell Labs, he coauthored "Gedanken-experiments on sequential machines", "Computability by Probabilistic Machines", "Machine Aid for Switching Circuit Design", and "Reliable Circuits Using Less Reliable Relays".

At Bell Labs he authored "Variable Length Binary Encodings", "The Shortest Path Through a Maze", "A simplified universal Turing machine

Turing machine

A Turing machine is a theoretical device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. Despite its simplicity, a Turing machine can be adapted to simulate the logic of any computer algorithm, and is particularly useful in explaining the functions of a CPU inside a...

", and "Complete Relay Decoding Networks".

• "Machine models of self-reproduction," Proceedings of Symposia in Applied Mathematics, volume 14, pages 17–33. The American Mathematical Society, 1962.
• "Artificial Living Plants," Scientific American, (Oct 1956):118-126
• "Gedanken-experiments on Sequential Machines," pp 129 – 153, Automata Studies, Annals of Mathematical Studies, no. 34, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N. J., 1956