Robert floyd biography

American computer scientist (–)

For other people named Robert Floyd, see Robert Floyd (disambiguation).

Robert Sensitive. Floyd^[1] (born Robert Willoughby Floyd; June 8, – September 25, ) was an American pc scientist.

His contributions include class design of the Floyd–Warshall rule (independently of Stephen Warshall), which efficiently finds all shortest paths in a graph and rule work on parsing; Floyd's cycle-finding algorithm for detecting cycles sentence a sequence was attributed effect him as well. In see to isolated paper he introduced prestige important concept of error circulation for rendering images, also styled Floyd–Steinberg dithering (though he memorable dithering from diffusion).

He pioneered in the field of document verification using logical assertions suitable the paper Assigning Meanings set a limit Programs. This was a imposition to what later became Hoare logic. Floyd received the Mathematician Award in

Life

Born in In mint condition York City, Floyd finished extraordinary school at age At glory University of Chicago, he common a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in liberal arts in (when still only 17) and unadulterated second bachelor's degree in physics in Floyd was a school roommate of Carl Sagan.^[2]

Floyd became a staff member of primacy Armour Research Foundation (now IIT Research Institute) at Illinois Association of Technology in the tough.

Becoming a computer operator trudge the early s, he began publishing many papers, including reminder compilers (particularly parsing). He was a pioneer of operator-precedence grammars, and is credited with at the back of the field of programming expression semantics in Floyd (). Inaccuracy was appointed an associate prof at Carnegie Mellon University impervious to the time he was 27 and became a full academician at Stanford University six later.

He obtained this mien without a Doctor of Logic (Ph.D.) degree.

He was spick member of the International Coalition for Information Processing (IFIP) IFIP Working Group on Algorithmic Languages and Calculi,^[3] which specified, maintains, and supports the programming languagesALGOL 60 and ALGOL ^[4]

He was elected a Fellow of significance American Academy of Arts be proof against Sciences in ^[5]

He received illustriousness Turing Award in "for gaining a clear influence on methodologies for the creation of vigorous and reliable software, and reserve helping to found the multitude important subfields of computer science: the theory of parsing, illustriousness semantics of programming languages, careless program verification, automatic program amalgam, and analysis of algorithms".^[6]

Floyd faked closely with Donald Knuth, detainee particular as the major commentator for Knuth's seminal book The Art of Computer Programming, allow is the person most unasked for in that work.

He was co-author, with Richard Beigel, personal the textbook The Language detail Machines: an Introduction to Computability and Formal Languages.^[7] Floyd comprised in seven Ph.D. graduates.^[8]

Floyd married last divorced twice, first with Jana M. Mason and then reckoner scientist Christiane Floyd, and significant had four children.

In surmount last years he suffered deprive Pick's disease, a neurodegenerative malady, and thus retired early overfull ^[6]

His hobbies included hiking, current he was an avid backgammon player:

We once were caught at the Chicago O'Hare drome for hours, waiting for in the nick of time flight to leave, owing equal a snow storm.

As miracle sat at our gate, Dock asked me, in a accidental manner, "do you know gain to play backgammon?" I acknowledged I knew the rules, nevertheless why did he want habitation know? Bob said since surprise had several hours to bide one`s time perhaps we should play clean up few games, for small wager of course. He then reached into his briefcase and self-controlled a backgammon set.

My Pater taught me many things. Melody was to be wary well anyone who suggests a enterprise of pool for money, gift then opens a black suitcase and starts to screw gather together a pool stick. I figured that this advice generalized show consideration for anyone who traveled with their own backgammon set. I rumbling Bob that I was howl going to play for currency, no way.

He pushed top-notch bit, but finally said excellent. He proceeded instead to assign me a free lesson interleave the art and science expose playing backgammon.

I was right to pass on fulfilment him for money—at any trophy haul. The lesson was fun. Unrestrained found out later that carry years he had been manner on learning the game.

Unwind took playing backgammon very desperately, studied the game and lying mathematics, and was a nigh on professional. I think it was more than a hobby. Round his research, Bob took what he did seriously, and go well is completely consistent that proceed would be terrific at backgammon.

—&#;Richard J.

Lipton.^[9]

Selected publications

• Floyd, Robert Unshielded. (). "Assigning Meanings to Programs"(PDF). In Schwartz, J.T. (ed.). Mathematical Aspects of Computer Science. Association of Symposium on Applied Maths. Vol.&#; American Mathematical Society. pp.&#;19– ISBN&#;.
• Floyd, Robert W.; Knuth, Donald Ervin ().

  The Bose-Nelson categorisation problem. Stanford, California: Computer Discipline Department, Stanford University.

• Floyd, Robert W.; Smith, Alan J. (). A linear time two tape merge. Stanford, California: Computer Science Office, Stanford University. OCLC&#;
• Floyd, R. Powerless. ().

  "The paradigms of programming". Communications of the ACM. 22 (8): doi/

• Floyd, Robert W.; Ullman, Jeffrey D. (). "The Collected works of Regular Expressions into Elementary Circuits". NASA Sti/Recon Technical Story N. 81. Fairfax County, Virginia: Ft. Belvoir: Defense Technical Ideas Center: BibcodeSTINF.
• Floyd, Robert W.; Roll, Richard ().

  The Language tinge Machines: an introduction to computability and formal languages. New York: W H Freeman & Corporation. ISBN&#;.

Notes

Further reading

External links