Alexander Dewdney
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Alexander Keewatin Dewdney (born August 5, 1941 in London, Ontario) is a Canadian mathematician, computer scientist and philosopher who has written a number of books on the future and implications of modern computing. He has also written one work of fiction, The Planiverse. Dewdney lives in London, Ontario, Canada where he holds the position of Professor Emeritus of the University of Western Ontario. Dewdney is the son of Canadian artist and author Selwyn Dewdney, as well as the brother of poet Christopher Dewdney.
In his early life, as "Keewatin Dewdney", he made a number of influential experimental films, including "Malanga", on the poet Gerard Malanga, as well as "Four Girls", "Scissors", and his most ambitious film, the pre-structuralist "Maltese Cross Movement." "Malanga", "Four Girls" and "Scissors" may be rented in 16 mm from the Film-Makers' Cooperative in New York City. More about Dewdney's early film work can be found in Wheeler Winston Dixon's book "The Exploding Eye", a history of experimental film in the 1960s.
Dewdney followed Martin Gardner and Douglas Hofstadter in authoring Scientific American's recreational mathematics column, which he renamed to "Computer Recreations", then "Mathematical Recreations", from 1984 to 1993 (with the last few appearing in Algorithm). These have been collected into 3 books. The subjects include computer viruses, Core Wars, finite automata like Conway's Game of Life, brown noise, the game of Alak, Tinkertoy and spaghetti sorting.
Dewdney has been a Muslim for over 35 years.[1] He has developed hypotheses which sharply disagree with the official version of the events surrounding the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks (see external links below). But many in the 9/11 Truth Movement do not agree with his claims that a Boeing aircraft could not have hit the Pentagon.[2]
[edit] Works
- The Planiverse: Computer Contact with a Two-Dimensional World (1984). ISBN 0-387-98916-1.
- The Armchair Universe: An Exploration of Computer Worlds (1988). ISBN 0-7167-1939-8. (collection of "Mathematical Recreations" columns)
- The Magic Machine: A Handbook of Computer Sorcery (1990). ISBN 0-7167-2144-9. (collection of "Mathematical Recreations" columns)
- The New Turing Omnibus: Sixty-Six Excursions in Computer Science (1993). ISBN 0-8050-7166-0.
- The Tinkertoy Computer and Other Machinations (1993). ISBN 0-7167-2491-X. (collection of "Mathematical Recreations" columns)
- Introductory Computer Science: Bits of Theory, Bytes of Practice (1996). ISBN 0-7167-8286-3.
- 200% of Nothing: An Eye Opening Tour Through the Twists and Turns of Math Abuse and Innumeracy (1996). ISBN 0-471-14574-2.
- Yes, We Have No Neutrons: An Eye-Opening Tour through the Twists and Turns of Bad Science (1997). ISBN 0-471-29586-8.
- Hungry Hollow: The Story of a Natural Place (1998). ISBN 0-387-98415-1.
- A Mathematical Mystery Tour: Discovering the Truth and Beauty of the Cosmos (2001). ISBN 0-471-40734-8.
- Beyond Reason: Eight Great Problems that Reveal the Limits of Science (2004). ISBN 0-471-01398-6.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- His personal page
- Operation Pearl one of Dewdney's analyses of 9/11
- PHYSICS 911 "is created and maintained by a group of scientists, engineers and other professionals known collectively as the Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-eleven"
- Alexander Dewdney at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dewdney, Alexander |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Dewdney, A.K. |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Mathematician, author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 5, 1941 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London, Ontario |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
