Rudy Rucker

Rudy Rucker
Rudy Rucker, Fall 2004, photo by Georgia Rucker
Born	Rudolf von Bitter Rucker (1946-03-22) March 22, 1946 (age 70) Louisville, Kentucky
Nationality	American
Alma mater	St. Xavier High School, Swarthmore College, Rutgers University
Occupation	Author
Known for	Ware Tetralogy
Spouse(s)	Sylvia Rucker (m. 1967)
Relatives	G.W.F. Hegel
Website	Rudy Rucker

Rudolf von Bitter Rucker (born March 22, 1946) is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known for the novels in the Ware Tetralogy, the first two of which (Software and Wetware) both won Philip K. Dick Awards. Until its closure in 2014 he edited the science fiction webzine Flurb.

Rucker was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the great-great-great-grandson of the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel.

Rucker attended St. Xavier High School before earning a B.A. in mathematics from Swarthmore College in 1967 and M.S. (1969) and PhD (1973) degrees in mathematics from Rutgers University.

Rucker taught at the State University of New York at Geneseo from 1972 to 1978. Thanks to a grant from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Rucker taught math at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg from 1978 to 1980. He then taught at Randolph-Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Virginia from 1980 to 1982, before trying his hand as a full-time author for four years. Inspired by an interview with Stephen Wolfram, Rucker became a computer science professor at San José State University in 1986, from which he retired in 2004. A mathematician with philosophical interests, he has written The Fourth Dimension; Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension; and Infinity and the Mind. Princeton University Press published new editions of Infinity and the Mind in 1995 and in 2005, both with new prefaces; the first edition is cited with fair frequency in academic literature.