Brian Silverman is a Canadian computer scientist, the creator of many programming environments for children,Computing Pioneer Returns to CMK 2010 Faculty!
, Constructing Modern Knowledge, September 29, 2010. and a researcher in

cellular automata A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tessel ...

. Silverman was a student at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in the 1970s, where he was one of the creators of a

tinkertoy The Tinkertoy Construction Set is a toy construction set for children. It was designed in 1914—six years after the Frank Hornby's Meccano sets—by Charles H. Pajeau, who formed the Toy Tinker Company in Evanston, Illinois to manufactu ...

computer that played

tic-tac-toe Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. ...

. As a student at MIT, Silverman had worked with

Seymour Papert Seymour Aubrey Papert (; 29 February 1928 – 31 July 2016) was a South African-born American mathematician, computer scientist, and educator, who spent most of his career teaching and researching at MIT. He was one of the pioneers of artificia ...

, and when Papert founded Logo Computer Systems, Inc. in 1980 to commercialize the

Logo programming language Logo is an educational programming language, designed in 1967 by Wally Feurzeig, Seymour Papert, and Cynthia Solomon. ''Logo'' is not an acronym: the name was coined by Feurzeig while he was at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, and derives from the Gre ...

, Silverman became its director of research. He later worked as a consulting scientist at the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

, where he ported Logo to "programmable bricks", a precursor to

Lego Mindstorms Lego Mindstorms is a hardware and software structure which develops programmable robots based on Lego building blocks. Each version includes computer Lego bricks, a set of modular sensors and motors, and Lego parts from the Technic line to ...

, and where he was one of the developers of the

Scratch programming language Scratch is a high-level block-based visual programming language and website aimed primarily at children as an educational tool for programming, with a target audience of ages 8 to 16. Users on the site, called Scratchers, can create projec ...

. He is the co-founder, along with Paula Bonta and

Mitchel Resnick Mitchel Resnick (born June 12, 1956) is Lego Papert Professor of Learning Research, Director of the Okawa Center, and Director of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab. , Resnick serves as h ...

, and president of the Playful Invention Company, headquartered in

Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...

, Canada, which develops the

Programmable Cricket Programmable Crickets, known commercially as PicoCrickets, are robotic toys in the form of programmable bricks. They are used to construct artistic projects. Crickets were developed at MIT Media Lab, and were launched commercially in Montreal in ...

, a spin-off from the Media Lab. Silverman was part of a team that

reverse-engineered Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...

the

MOS Technology 6502 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...

and

Intel 4004 The Intel 4004 is a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) released by Intel Corporation in 1971. Sold for US$60, it was the first commercially produced microprocessor, and the first in a long line of Intel CPUs. The 4004 was the first significa ...

microprocessors and developed transistor-level emulators for them, and that ported '' Spacewar!'', one of the earliest digital computer games, to

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

, by writing another emulator for the

PDP-1 The PDP-1 (''Programmed Data Processor-1'') is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of hacker culture at Massachusett ...

on which the game was originally written. He also invented several well-known

cellular automaton A cellular automaton (pl. cellular automata, abbrev. CA) is a discrete model of computation studied in automata theory. Cellular automata are also called cellular spaces, tessellation automata, homogeneous structures, cellular structures, tesse ...

rules, including Brian's Brain, Seeds, and

Wireworld Wireworld, alternatively WireWorld, is a cellular automaton first proposed by Brian Silverman in 1987, as part of his program Phantom Fish Tank. It subsequently became more widely known as a result of an article in the "Computer Recreations" colu ...

; working with his brother Barry Silverman he recovered the IBM APL\360 sources from tape to a state where they could be run on a mainframe emulator.

Selected publications

*. *. *. *.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Silverman, Brian Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Canadian computer scientists Cellular automatists Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Programming language designers