Edward Fredkin was an American computer scientist and physicist, recruited to a full MIT professorship in 1968 by Marvin Minsky despite never completing a college degree, who became an early pioneer of digital physics, the idea that physical processes can be understood as forms of computation. He invented the Fredkin gate, a reversible logic gate important to the theory of reversible and quantum computing, proposed the billiard ball model of computation, and introduced the trie data structure for storing and searching text. He directed MITs Project MAC, later renamed the Laboratory for Computer Science, from 1971 to 1974.
Facts
AwardDickson Prize in Science 2 FAQs
What is the trie data structure that Edward Fredkin developed?
The trie stores strings in a tree-like format; Fredkin developed it.
The trie is a data structure that stores strings within a data set in an associative array, organizing them in a tree-like format. MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory credits Edward Fredkin with developing it, in its obituary for him as a professor and Project MAC figure.
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In Field
Source Wikipedia: Edward Fredkin
Invented
Trie, Concepts Edward Fredkin coined the term trie and described the structure in his 1960 paper Trie Memory.
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Sources
1. Wikipedia: Edward Fredkin
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Edward Fredkin (October 2, 1934 - June 13, 2023) was an American computer scientist, physicist and businessman who was an early pioneer of digital physics.
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was an American computer scientist, physicist and businessman who was an early pioneer of digital physics
View the Source 2. Wikidata: Edward Fredkin
Wikidata Q1292266, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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