A selection of interesting facts about the great IT people

George boule

George Boole (1815 - 1864) - English professor of mathematics, whose work contributed to the creation of modern symbolic logic. His logic algebra , called Boolean algebra or Boolean logic (algebraic structure, augmented distributive lattice, and part of mathematics that studies such structures) is fundamental to the design of modern digital circuits. The work of Buhl embodied in the applications that he would never have imagined.

• The wife of George Bul - Mary Everest , the niece of George Everest , Inspector General of India, who in 1841 completed work on the creation of a triangulation system for this country, the author of the well-known capital labor Report on the measurement of two arcs of the Indian meridian. As is already clear, the highest peak of the globe is named in his honor.
• He was awarded the knighthood in 1861.
• He has five daughters who continued the dynasty of scientists:
  
  • Alicia - specialized in the study of multidimensional spaces and received an honorary degree at the University of Groningen.
  • Lucy - became the first female professor in England, received the department of chemistry.
  • Mary married Charles Hinton - a mathematician, inventor, science fiction writer, author of the story "The Case in Flatland", which describes some creatures living in a flat two-dimensional world. Of the Hinton offspring, three grandchildren became scientists: William and Joan - physicists, and Guevard - an entomologist.
  • Margaret made history as the mother of a major English mathematician and mechanic, Jeffrey Taylor.
  • Ethel Lilian married a scientist Michael-Wilfred Voinich . Ethel Voinich wrote the novel “The Gadfly” that glorified her to the whole world. Subsequently, several more novels, musical works, as well as an English translation of Taras Shevchenko's poems followed.
  
  

John von neumann

John von Neumann (1903-1957) is a Hungarian-American mathematician of Jewish origin who made important contributions to quantum physics , quantum logic , functional analysis , set theory , computer science , economics, and other branches of science. Best known as the forefather of modern computer architecture (the so-called von Neumann architecture ), the application of operator theory to quantum mechanics (von Neumann algebra), as well as a participant in the Manhattan project and the creator of game theory and the concept of cellular automata .

• Neumann had almost absolute memory. After many years he could retell the pages of books he read, immediately translating the text into English or German, and with slight delays into French or Italian.
• When Neumann spoke at the blackboard, he very quickly covered its entire surface with various formulas, and then very quickly erased everything, so not everyone had time to understand the course of his reasoning.
• In 1928, Neumann wrote an article "On the theory of strategic games." In it, he proved the minimax theorem, which served as one of the foundations of the game theory created later. This article was the result of a study of the poker game of two partners and a discussion of the optimal strategy for each of the players. However, this work did little to help Neyman himself when playing poker. So in 1944 in Los Alamos, he lost $ 10 to N. Metropolis immediately after he explained this theory to him. Having received the prize, Metropolis bought Neumann and Morgenstern ’s book “Game Theory and Economic Behavior” for $ 5, put another $ 5 on it and made the author sign on the history of this loss on the book.
• While working on the creation of the hydrogen bomb, von Neumann and Stanislav Ulam developed a method of independent statistical tests, now known as the Monte Carlo method . One of the main difficulties in developing this method was the lack of random number generators at that time. Then Neumann suggested using one of the roulettes in the Monte Carlo casino for generating random number sequences, where the best roulettes were, and, therefore, the best random number sequences were generated. The military department agreed to rent one of these devices - Ulam and Neuman played enough money at the government expense in roulette, and they called their method in memory of this the Monte Carlo method.
• They wrote about Neumann that he could go to bed with an unsolved problem, and wake up at three in the morning with a ready answer. Then he went to the phone and called his staff. Therefore, one of the requirements of Neumann for his employees was a readiness to be woken in the middle of the night.
• During a trip in a car, Neuman could be driving so enthusiastic about solving some problem that he lost orientation in space and needed clarification.
• Once, while working on the atomic project in Los Alamos, it was necessary to make some very complicated calculations. Enrico Fermi , Richard Feynman and John von Neumann set to work. Fermi picked up his favorite slide rule, a pencil and a bunch of sheets of paper. Feynman was overlaid by various reference books, turned on an electric calculator (the fastest one that existed at that time) and delved into the calculations. Neumann counted in the mind. The results, which almost coincided, they received simultaneously.

Alan Matheson Turing

Alan Matheson Turing (1912 - 1954) - English mathematician, logician, cryptographer, who had a significant impact on the development of computer science. It is considered the founder of computer science, who laid its mathematical foundations in the 1936 article "On Computable Numbers" (On Computable Numbers). The abstract computing “Turing Machine” proposed by him in 1936 allowed him to formalize the concept of an algorithm and is still used in a variety of theoretical and practical studies.

• Turing was homosexual.
• He made an enormous contribution to the British project of hacking the Nazi Enigma encryption machine during World War II.
• In 1950, Alan Turing proposed the famous game called "Imitation Game". Now it is better known as the "Turing Test" .
• Once they robbed the house of Alan Turing, and the scientist called the police. Unfortunately, the police found evidence of the owner’s homosexuality in the house and, instead of looking for thieves, arrested Turing himself, who lost his right to work with secret documents and was suspended from his work. The court gave the opportunity to choose Turing between imprisonment and injection of sex hormones. Turing chose the latter. The effect was catastrophic: his chest grew. In 1954, Turing, unable to withstand mental anguish, committed suicide - ate an apple stuffed with cyanide.
• The Apple logo is a tribute to Turing.

Claude Elwood Shannon

Claude Elwood Shannon (1916 - 2001) - American engineer and mathematician. His works are a synthesis of mathematical ideas with a specific analysis of the extremely complex problems of their technical implementation. He is the founder of the theory of information , which has found application in modern high-tech communication systems. Shannon made an enormous contribution to the theory of probability schemes, the theory of automata, and the theory of control systems — fields of science that are part of the concept of cybernetics .
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• Claude Shannon and the godfather of blackjack card counting techniques Edward Thorpe were good friends and partners: many Thorpe theories were proved by Shannon and vice versa.
• On the advice of John von Neumann, Shannon determined the amount of information through entropy . As a result, he proved his theorem on the throughput of noisy communication channels .
• One of the first Shannon suggested that the machines can play games and learn. In 1950, he made a mechanical remotely controlled electronic circuit mouse named Theseus, who learned to find a way out of the labyrinth.
• Shannon was very fond of juggling. In retirement, he built several juggling machines and even created a general theory of juggling, which, however, did not help him break his personal record - juggling with four balls.
• Shannon loved to ride the unicycle on the corridors of Bell Labs and juggle at the same time.
• The most unusual instruments created by Shannon are the seven chess machines, a circus pole with a spring and a gasoline engine, a folding knife with a hundred blades, a two-seater, a juggling dummy and a computer calculating in the Roman number system.

Donald Erwin Knut

Donald Erwin Knuth (1938) - American scientist, teacher and ideologist of programming, author of 19 monographs (including a number of classic books on programming) and more than 160 articles, developer of several well-known software technologies. He is the author of the world-famous series of books devoted to the basic algorithms and methods of computational mathematics, as well as the creator of the desktop publishing systems TEX and METAFONT , intended for the collection and layout of books on technical topics (first of all, physical and mathematical).

• Knut admits that he has an inferiority complex. As he said, this explains the fact that he always worked hard. In high school at Milwaukee Lutheran High School, he was worried that low math grades might prevent him from entering college, but it was an incomprehensible concern, as he finished school with the highest rate ever - 97.5%. Due to the same fear, at the Keisk Institute of Technology, Knut, in extra time, with zeal studied differential and integral calculus and analytical geometry.
• At the institute, when working with a computer for the first time, Knut got very excited about the new IBM 650, because of which he missed a meeting with his future wife, because he was too enthusiastic about debagging. "The Art of Programming" Knut dedicated exactly to this computer.
• Knut was the manager of the basketball team. He developed a formula that calculated the contribution of each to the game, not only by the number of points that he brought to the team.
• Music is of great interest to him. He became a baroque 1000-pipe organ designer for the Lutheran church at Menlo Park in California and built a smaller version for his home.
• Whip no longer pays 2 dollars 56 cents for every mistake found in his book. © Koshelew
• Donald Knut knows Russian. © middle

Bill Gates

Bill Gates (William Henry Gates III, 1955) - Chairman of the Board and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft , a leading global manufacturer of software for personal computers. The main merit of Bill Gates is that he forecasted ahead for decades the possibility of obtaining super-profits from what cannot be touched, what is exclusively a product of the activity of the human mind - computer programs.

• Gates loves cars, motor boats and poker.
• Gates gambling in work to manic, a passion for competition carries him more money.
• He never ate at home because he didn’t want to waste time on cooking.
• His first major fee, Bill Gates received in 15 years, for the program to adjust the traffic. The fee was 20 thousand dollars. And at 38, he already sold a million copies of his Windows per month.
• Gates was expelled from Harvard University for academic failure. Many years later (after his fortune had reached an altitude of several billion dollars), the Harvard administration recognized him as a graduate and issued a diploma.
• As a child, Bill loved to ride on a swing. If now he has to think, he begins to ride.
• At 13, Bill Gates and his friends hacked into a school computer and got access to secret information. Instead of punishment, Seattle Computer Center hired Gates to work to test his programs.
• Parents were scared of Gates to the computers and even forbade him to approach this "hellish machine." The following year, Bill read the biographies of great people. He was interested in the way of thinking of historical figures.
• At the dawn of the world wide web, Gates said: "The Internet is hopeless." Within a few years, he threw his best programmers onto this front line.
• Gates wrote his first program, which helped in effective planning of study hours, at school. He used the program to enroll in the class with the cutest girls.
• Bill Gates became a billionaire at 31. If he were a country, he would occupy the thirty-seventh place in the list of the richest countries in the world.
• It was estimated that Bill earns $ 250 per second, that is, $ 21.6 million per day, or $ 7.8 billion per year. If he distributes fifteen dollars to every person on Earth, then he will have 5 million more. And if every time Windows hangs, it loses one dollar, then its status would be zero in three years.
• He spent about thirty billion dollars of his money on charity.
• He is married and has three children. He forbids his children to play in the Xbox 360.

Timothy john berners-lee

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (1955) - British scientist, inventor of URI , URL , HTTP , HTML , inventor of the World Wide Web (with Robert Kayo ) and acting head of the World Wide Web Consortium. The author of the concept of semantic web. Author of many other developments in the field of information technology.

• At King's College at Oxford University, Tim had a sad incident: he was denied access to the computer of the laboratory of nuclear physics for not playing at a time when he played toys that had nothing to do with science. Something similar happened once with another negligent student. His name was Bill Gates.
• Once Tim and his friend were caught during a hacker attack, for which they this time were denied the right to use all university computers. Tim did not accept excommunication from the device, which was ablaze with passion. This passion generated a powerful creative impulse, and the guy designed his own personal computer from an old TV, a character generator chip, bought for two microprocessor scholarships and found in the calculator dustbin.
• Tim speaks very quickly and it is absolutely impossible to keep up with his thoughts. When he lived in Geneva, his Swiss colleagues began to turn to him exclusively in French in order to slightly reduce the rate of conversation.
• One day, he was giving a lecture in front of a huge audience, and suddenly there were problems with a computer. Tim coped with them and, as it were, casually said: "Would I have stood here in front of you if everything worked as it should?"
• Tim and his wife, Nancy Carlson, cannot stand being pushed into their family affairs. For more information about their family life, they call for a lawyer.
• After the Americans simplified the name of the right hand of Tim Kailiagou to Kayo, allegations began to appear on various sources that the web was created by Chinese Lee and Japanese Kayo.
• In a sense, it opposes the commercialization of the World Wide Web. He is interested in the network itself, not in its use. In one of his interviews, Berners-Lee admitted that he “almost physically suffers from all-consuming trash on the Web.”

References:

ru.wikipedia.org
abhoc.com
arti-ex.ru
scorp.ru
habrahabr.ru
factopedia.ru
joker.vulanude.ru
peoples.ru

PS: I wanted to write more about Philip Wadler , but somehow there was nothing interesting about him; maybe I was looking badly.
PPS: I’m happy to add interesting facts and new personalities that you found.