Edward O. Thorp
| Edward O. Thorp | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 14, 1932 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Residence | United States |
| Citizenship | American |
| Fields | Probability theory, Linear operators |
| Institutions | UC Irvine, New Mexico State University, MIT |
| Alma mater | UCLA |
| Thesis | Compact Linear Operators in Normed Spaces (1958) |
| Doctoral advisor | Angus E. Taylor |
| Known for | Father of wearable computers |
| Influences | Claude Shannon |
Edward Oakley "Ed" Thorp (born August 14, 1932) is an American mathematics professor, author, hedge fund manager, and blackjack player best known as the "father of the wearable computer" after inventing the world's first wearable computer in 1961. He pioneered the modern applications of probability theory, including the harnessing of very small correlations for reliable financial gain.
He is the author of Beat the Dealer, the first book to mathematically prove, in 1962, that the house advantage in blackjack could be overcome by card counting. He also developed and applied effective hedge fund techniques in the financial markets, and collaborated with Claude Shannon in creating the first wearable computer.
Thorp received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1958, and worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1959 to 1961. He was a professor of mathematics from 1961 to 1965 at New Mexico State University, and then joined the University of California, Irvine where he was a professor of mathematics from 1965 to 1977 and a professor of mathematics and finance from 1977 to 1982.
Thorp used the IBM 704 as a research tool in order to investigate the probabilities of winning while developing his blackjack game theory, which was based on the Kelly criterion, which he learned about from the 1956 paper by Kelly. He learned Fortran in order to program the equations needed for his theoretical research model on the probabilities of winning at blackjack. Thorp analyzed the game of blackjack to a great extent this way, while devising card-counting schemes with the aid of the IBM 704 in order to improve his odds, especially near the end of a card deck that is not being reshuffled after every deal.
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