Joseph F. Traub | |
---|---|
Born | Joseph Frederick Traub June 24, 1932 Karlsruhe, Weimar Germany |
Died | August 24, 2015 Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S. |
(aged 83)
Nationality | United States |
Fields | Computer Science |
Institutions | Columbia University |
Alma mater | City College of New York (B.S., 1954) Columbia University (Ph.D., Applied Mathematics, 1959) |
Thesis | Variational Calculations on the Triplet-2S and Triplet-2P States of Helium (1959) |
Doctoral advisor | Henry M. Foley |
Spouse | Pamela McCorduck |
Joseph Frederick Traub (June 24, 1932 – August 24, 2015) was an American computer scientist. He was the Edwin Howard Armstrong Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He held positions at Bell Laboratories, University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon, and Columbia, as well as sabbatical positions at Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, California Institute of Technology, and Technical University, Munich. Traub was the author or editor of ten monographs and some 120 papers in computer science, mathematics, physics, finance, and economics. In 1959 he began his work on optimal iteration theory culminating in his 1964 monograph, which is still in print. Subsequently he pioneered work with Henryk Woźniakowski on computational complexity applied to continuous scientific problems (information-based complexity). He collaborated in creating significant new algorithms including the Jenkins-Traub Algorithm for Polynomial Zeros, as well as the Kung-Traub, Shaw-Traub, and Brent-Traub algorithms. One of his research areas was continuous quantum computing. As of November 10, 2015, his works have been cited 8500 times, and he has an h-index of 35.