Christopher Stewart Wallace (26 October 1933 – 7 August 2004) was an Australian

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

and

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

. Wallace is notable for having devised: * The

minimum message length Minimum message length (MML) is a Bayesian information-theoretic method for statistical model comparison and selection. It provides a formal information theory restatement of Occam's Razor: even when models are equal in their measure of fit-accurac ...

principle — an

information-theoretic Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. T ...

principle in

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

econometrics Econometrics is the application of Statistics, statistical methods to economic data in order to give Empirical evidence, empirical content to economic relationships.M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," ''The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of ...

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

inductive inference Inductive reasoning is a method of reasoning in which a general principle is derived from a body of observations. It consists of making broad generalizations based on specific observations. Inductive reasoning is distinct from ''deductive'' re ...

and

knowledge discovery Knowledge extraction is the creation of Knowledge representation and reasoning, knowledge from structured (relational databases, XML) and unstructured (text (literary theory), text, documents, images) sources. The resulting knowledge needs to be in ...

which can be seen both as a mathematical formalisation of

Occam's Razor Occam's razor, Ockham's razor, or Ocham's razor ( la, novacula Occami), also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony ( la, lex parsimoniae), is the problem-solving principle that "entities should not be multiplied beyond neces ...

and as an invariant

Bayesian Thomas Bayes (/beɪz/; c. 1701 – 1761) was an English statistician, philosopher, and Presbyterian minister. Bayesian () refers either to a range of concepts and approaches that relate to statistical methods based on Bayes' theorem, or a follower ...

method of model selection and

point estimation In statistics, point estimation involves the use of sample data to calculate a single value (known as a point estimate since it identifies a point in some parameter space) which is to serve as a "best guess" or "best estimate" of an unknown populat ...

, * The

Wallace tree A Wallace multiplier is a hardware implementation of a binary multiplier, a digital circuit that multiplies two integers. It uses a selection of full and half adders (the Wallace tree or Wallace reduction) to sum partial products in stages unti ...

form of

binary multiplier A binary multiplier is an electronic circuit used in digital electronics, such as a computer, to multiply two binary numbers. A variety of computer arithmetic techniques can be used to implement a digital multiplier. Most techniques involve compu ...

(1964), * a variety of random number generators, * a theory in physics and philosophy that

entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynam ...

is not the arrow of time, * a refrigeration system (from the 1950s, whose design is still in use in 2010), * hardware for detecting and counting cosmic rays, * design of computer operating systems, * the notion of

universality probability Universality probability is an abstruse probability measure in computational complexity theory that concerns universal Turing machines. Background A Turing machine is a basic model of computation. Some Turing machines might be specific to doi ...

in mathematical logic, * and a vast range of other works - see, e.g., and its
Foreword re C. S. Wallace
' , p
523-560
He was appointed Foundation Chair of Information Science at

Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has a ...

in 1968 at the age of 34 (before the Department was re-named Computer Science), and Professor Emeritus in 1996. Wallace was a fellow of the

Australian Computer Society The Australian Computer Society (ACS) is an association for information and communications technology professionals with over 48,000 members Australia-wide. According to its Constitution, its objectives are "to advance professional excellence ...

and in 1995 he was appointed a fellow of the

ACM ACM or A.C.M. may refer to: Aviation * AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile * Air chief marshal * Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting * Air cycle machine * Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia Computing * ...

"For research in a number of areas in Computer Science including fast multiplication algorithm, minimum message length principle and its applications, random number generation, computer architecture, numerical solution of ODE's, and contribution to Australian Computer Science." Wallace received his PhD (in Physics) from the University of Sydney in 1959. He was married to Judy Ogilvie, the first secretary and programme librarian of

SILLIAC The SILLIAC (''Sydney version of the Illinois Automatic Computer'', i.e. the ''Sydney ILLIAC''), an early computer built by the University of Sydney, Australia, was based on the ILLIAC and ORDVAC computers developed at the University of Illinoi ...

, which was launched on the 12 of September 1956 at the University of Sydney and which was one of Australia's first computers. He also engineered one of the world's first Local Area Networks in the mid-1960s.

References

External links

Tribute to IT pioneer Chris Wallace — 13 October 2004

* ttp://www.monash.edu.au/news/show/innovative-studios-honour-monash-pioneer Innovative studios honour Monash pioneer — 2 November 2011
Christopher S. Wallace publications
and searchabl
publications database
* Wallace, C.S. (posthumous, 2005)

Springer (Series: Information Science and Statistics), 2005, XVI, 432 pp., 22 illus., Hardcover, . (Links t
chapter headingstable of contents
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sample pages
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. (As far as we know
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cites and includes references to every paper which Chris Wallace ever wrote nd every thesis he ever supervised)
Chris Wallace Award for Outstanding Research Contribution
— established b
CORE (The Computing Research and Education Association of Australasia)
- see als
The Chris Wallace Award for Outstanding Research (for 2015)
an
CORE brief Chris Wallace bio'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wallace, Christopher Stewart 1933 births 2004 deaths Australian computer scientists Australian physicists Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Information theorists Monash University faculty Computer science educators University of Sydney alumni Australian statisticians Scientists from Melbourne