Edward Fredkin
Encyclopedia
Edward Fredkin is an early pioneer of digital physics
. In recent work, he uses the term digital philosophy
(DP). His primary contributions include his work on reversible computing
and cellular automata. While Konrad Zuse
's book, Calculating Space
(1969), mentioned the importance of reversible computation, the Fredkin gate
represented the essential breakthrough.
Edward Fredkin dropped out of Caltech
after one year and, at age 19, joined the USAF
where he became a jet fighter pilot. Fredkin’s computer career started in 1956 when the Air Force assigned him to work at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He worked at BBN in the early 1960s where he wrote the first PDP-1
assembler.
In 1968, Fredkin returned to academia, starting at MIT as a full professor. From 1971 to 1974 he was the Director of Project MAC. He spent a year at Caltech as a Fairchild Distinguished Scholar, working with Richard Feynman
, and was a Professor of Physics
at Boston University
for 6 years. More recently, he has been a Distinguished Career Professor at Carnegie Mellon University
and a Visiting Professor at MIT.
Fredkin founded Information International Inc. and has served as the CEO of a diverse set of companies, including Information International, Three Rivers Computer Corporation
, and New England Television Corporation (owner of Boston's then CBS
affiliate, WNEV, channel 7).
Fredkin has been broadly interested in computation: hardware and software. He is the inventor of the trie
data structure, the Fredkin gate
and the Billiard-Ball Computer
Model for reversible computing
. He has also been involved in computer vision
, chess, and other areas of Artificial Intelligence
research. Fredkin also works at the intersection of theoretical issues in the physics of computation and computational models of physics. He recently developed Salt, a model of computation based on fundamental conservation laws from physics .
A profile of Edward Fredkin along with a readable explanation of some of his theories can be found in the first part of Three Scientists and Their Gods by Robert Wright
(1988). The section of the book covering Fredkin was excerpted in The Atlantic Monthly in April 1988.
(DP) is one type of digital physics
and pancomputationalism. The school of philosophy called pancomputationalism claims that all the physical processes of nature are forms of computation or information processing at the most fundamental level of reality. Pancomputationalism belongs to several larger schools of philosophy: atomism
, determinism
, mechanism
, monism
, naturalism
, philosophical realism
, reductionism
, and scientific empiricism. Pancomputationalists believe that biology reduces to chemistry reduces to physics reduces to computation of information. Fredkin's career and achievements have much of their motivation in "Digital Philosophy," a particular type of pancomputationalism described in Fredkin's papers: "Introduction to Digital Philosophy," "On the Soul," "Finite Nature," "A New Cosmogony," and "Digital Mechanics."
Fredkin's digital philosophy contains several fundamental ideas: Everything in physics and physical reality must have a digital informational representation. All changes in physical nature are consequences of digital informational processes. Nature is finite and digital. The traditional Judaeo-Christian concept of the soul has a counterpart in a static/dynamic soul defined in terms of digital philosophy.
the character Stephen Falken in the film "WarGames
" was modeled after Fredkin.
Digital physics
In physics and cosmology, digital physics is a collection of theoretical perspectives based on the premise that the universe is, at heart, describable by information, and is therefore computable...
. In recent work, he uses the term digital philosophy
Digital philosophy
Digital philosophy is a direction in philosophy and cosmology advocated by certain mathematicians and theoretical physicists, e.g., Gregory Chaitin, Edward Fredkin, Stephen Wolfram, and Konrad Zuse ....
(DP). His primary contributions include his work on reversible computing
Reversible computing
Reversible computing is a model of computing where the computational process to some extent is reversible, i.e., time-invertible. A necessary condition for reversibility of a computational model is that the transition function mapping states to their successors at a given later time should be...
and cellular automata. While Konrad Zuse
Konrad Zuse
Konrad Zuse was a German civil engineer and computer pioneer. His greatest achievement was the world's first functional program-controlled Turing-complete computer, the Z3, which became operational in May 1941....
's book, Calculating Space
Calculating Space
Calculating Space is the title of MIT's English translation of Konrad Zuse's 1969 book Rechnender Raum , the first book on digital physics....
(1969), mentioned the importance of reversible computation, the Fredkin gate
Fredkin gate
The Fredkin gate is a computational circuit suitable for reversible computing, invented by Ed Fredkin. It is universal, which means that any logical or arithmetic operation can be constructed entirely of Fredkin gates...
represented the essential breakthrough.
Edward Fredkin dropped out of Caltech
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
after one year and, at age 19, joined the USAF
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
where he became a jet fighter pilot. Fredkin’s computer career started in 1956 when the Air Force assigned him to work at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. He worked at BBN in the early 1960s where he wrote the first PDP-1
PDP-1
The PDP-1 was the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1960. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of hacker culture at MIT, BBN and elsewhere...
assembler.
In 1968, Fredkin returned to academia, starting at MIT as a full professor. From 1971 to 1974 he was the Director of Project MAC. He spent a year at Caltech as a Fairchild Distinguished Scholar, working with Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...
, and was a Professor of Physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
at Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
for 6 years. More recently, he has been a Distinguished Career Professor at Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
and a Visiting Professor at MIT.
Fredkin founded Information International Inc. and has served as the CEO of a diverse set of companies, including Information International, Three Rivers Computer Corporation
Three Rivers Computer Corporation
The Three Rivers Computer Corporation was a spinoff of the Computer Science department at Carnegie-Mellon University, and was founded in 1974 by Brian Rosen, James Teter, Bill Broadley, Stan Kriz, Raj Reddy and Paul Newbury. The company was located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The company's...
, and New England Television Corporation (owner of Boston's then CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
affiliate, WNEV, channel 7).
Fredkin has been broadly interested in computation: hardware and software. He is the inventor of the trie
Trie
In computer science, a trie, or prefix tree, is an ordered tree data structure that is used to store an associative array where the keys are usually strings. Unlike a binary search tree, no node in the tree stores the key associated with that node; instead, its position in the tree defines the...
data structure, the Fredkin gate
Fredkin gate
The Fredkin gate is a computational circuit suitable for reversible computing, invented by Ed Fredkin. It is universal, which means that any logical or arithmetic operation can be constructed entirely of Fredkin gates...
and the Billiard-Ball Computer
Billiard-Ball Computer
A billiard ball computer, also known as a conservative logic circuit, is an idealized model of a reversible mechanical computer based on newtonian dynamics, proposed in 1982 by Edward Fredkin and Tommaso Toffoli...
Model for reversible computing
Reversible computing
Reversible computing is a model of computing where the computational process to some extent is reversible, i.e., time-invertible. A necessary condition for reversibility of a computational model is that the transition function mapping states to their successors at a given later time should be...
. He has also been involved in computer vision
Computer vision
Computer vision is a field that includes methods for acquiring, processing, analysing, and understanding images and, in general, high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g., in the forms of decisions...
, chess, and other areas of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
research. Fredkin also works at the intersection of theoretical issues in the physics of computation and computational models of physics. He recently developed Salt, a model of computation based on fundamental conservation laws from physics .
A profile of Edward Fredkin along with a readable explanation of some of his theories can be found in the first part of Three Scientists and Their Gods by Robert Wright
Robert Wright (journalist)
Robert Wright is an American journalist, scholar, and prize-winning author of best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology, history, religion, and game theory, including The Evolution of God, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, The Moral Animal, and Three Scientists and Their Gods:...
(1988). The section of the book covering Fredkin was excerpted in The Atlantic Monthly in April 1988.
Fredkin's version of digital philosophy
Digital philosophyDigital philosophy
Digital philosophy is a direction in philosophy and cosmology advocated by certain mathematicians and theoretical physicists, e.g., Gregory Chaitin, Edward Fredkin, Stephen Wolfram, and Konrad Zuse ....
(DP) is one type of digital physics
Digital physics
In physics and cosmology, digital physics is a collection of theoretical perspectives based on the premise that the universe is, at heart, describable by information, and is therefore computable...
and pancomputationalism. The school of philosophy called pancomputationalism claims that all the physical processes of nature are forms of computation or information processing at the most fundamental level of reality. Pancomputationalism belongs to several larger schools of philosophy: atomism
Atomism
Atomism is a natural philosophy that developed in several ancient traditions. The atomists theorized that the natural world consists of two fundamental parts: indivisible atoms and empty void.According to Aristotle, atoms are indestructible and immutable and there are an infinite variety of shapes...
, determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
, mechanism
Mechanism (philosophy)
Mechanism is the belief that natural wholes are like machines or artifacts, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other, and with their order imposed from without. Thus, the source of an apparent thing's activities is not the whole itself, but its parts or an external...
, monism
Monism
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...
, naturalism
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
, philosophical realism
Philosophical realism
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality, or some aspect of it, is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc....
, reductionism
Reductionism
Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can...
, and scientific empiricism. Pancomputationalists believe that biology reduces to chemistry reduces to physics reduces to computation of information. Fredkin's career and achievements have much of their motivation in "Digital Philosophy," a particular type of pancomputationalism described in Fredkin's papers: "Introduction to Digital Philosophy," "On the Soul," "Finite Nature," "A New Cosmogony," and "Digital Mechanics."
Fredkin's digital philosophy contains several fundamental ideas: Everything in physics and physical reality must have a digital informational representation. All changes in physical nature are consequences of digital informational processes. Nature is finite and digital. The traditional Judaeo-Christian concept of the soul has a counterpart in a static/dynamic soul defined in terms of digital philosophy.
War Games
According to biographer Robert WrightRobert Wright (journalist)
Robert Wright is an American journalist, scholar, and prize-winning author of best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology, history, religion, and game theory, including The Evolution of God, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, The Moral Animal, and Three Scientists and Their Gods:...
the character Stephen Falken in the film "WarGames
WarGames
WarGames is a 1983 American Cold War suspense/science-fiction film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. The film stars Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy....
" was modeled after Fredkin.
External links
- Digital Philosophy.org
- The Mouse That Roared: PDP-1 Celebration Event panel, 15 May 2006.