Anthony C. Hearn is an Australian-American computer scientist and adjunct staff member at RAND Corporation and at the Institute for Defense Analyses Center for Computing Sciences. He is best known for his pioneering contributions in mathematical software development, most notably in developing the

computer algebra system A computer algebra system (CAS) or symbolic algebra system (SAS) is any mathematical software with the ability to manipulate mathematical expressions in a way similar to the traditional manual computations of mathematicians and scientists. The d ...

REDUCE Reduction, reduced, or reduce may refer to: Science and technology Chemistry * Reduction (chemistry), part of a reduction-oxidation (redox) reaction in which atoms have their oxidation state changed. ** Organic redox reaction, a redox react ...

, which is the oldest such system still in active use. He was also one of the founders of the

CSNET The Computer Science Network (CSNET) was a computer network that began operation in 1981 in the United States. Its purpose was to extend networking benefits, for computer science departments at academic and research institutions that could not be di ...

computer network, for which he shared the Jonathan B. Postel Service Award with Peter J. Denning,

David Farber David J. Farber (born April 17, 1934) is a professor of computer science, noted for his major contributions to programming languages and computer networking. He is currently the Distinguished Professor and Co-Director of Cyber Civilization Res ...

, and

Lawrence Landweber Lawrence Hugh Landweber is John P. Morgridge Professor Emeritus of computer science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He received his bachelor's degree in 1963 at Brooklyn College and his Ph.D. at Purdue University in 1967. His doct ...

in 2009. He was elected a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 2006 "for contributions to computer algebra and symbolic computation."

Biography

Hearn attended the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...

for his bachelor's degree, graduating in 1958. He attended the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

for his PhD in theoretical physics and graduated in 1962. From 1962 to 1964, he was a research associate in physics at Stanford University, returning as an assistant professor and Sloan Foundation Fellow in 1965 after a year at the Rutherford Laboratory in England. While at Stanford, he worked with

Sidney Drell Sidney David Drell (September 13, 1926 – December 21, 2016) was an American theoretical physicist and arms control expert. At the time of his death, he was professor emeritus at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and senior fel ...

and formulated the Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn sum rule for connecting the

Compton scattering Compton scattering, discovered by Arthur Holly Compton, is the scattering of a high frequency photon after an interaction with a charged particle, usually an electron. If it results in a decrease in energy (increase in wavelength) of the photon ...

amplitudes to the inclusive photoproduction cross sections in particle physics. In 1969, he joined the faculty at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

as an associate professor of physics and became full professor in 1971. Around this period he began using ideas and tools from computer science to help solve problems symbolically in high energy physics. From 1973 until 1980, he was professor and chair of the University of Utah School of Computing. He joined RAND Corporation in 1980 as head of the Information Sciences Department, where he served until 1984. He worked at the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

as a member of the Program Advisory Committee for the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing from 1984 to 1986. He was a resident scholar at RAND from 1990 to 1996.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hearn, Anthony C. Living people American computer scientists Australian computer scientists University of Adelaide alumni Alumni of the University of Cambridge Stanford University faculty University of Utah faculty Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery RAND Corporation people Sloan Research Fellows Internet pioneers Year of birth missing (living people)