Cristopher David Moore, known as Cris Moore, (born March 12, 1968 in
New Brunswick, New Jersey
New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat, seat of government of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Curriculum vitae retrieved 2012-03-10. is an American computer scientist, mathematician, and physicist. He is resident faculty at the
Santa Fe Institute
The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, includ ...
, and was formerly a full professor at the
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...
.
Biography
Moore did his undergraduate studies at
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
, graduating in 1986. He earned his Ph.D. in 1991 from
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
under the supervision of
Philip Holmes
Philip John Holmes (born May 24, 1945) is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University. As a member of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department, he formerly served as the interim chair ...
. After postdoctoral studies at the Santa Fe Institute, he joined the institute as a research faculty member in 1998, and moved to the University of New Mexico in 2000 as an assistant professor. He received tenure there in 2005. In 2007 he became a research professor at the Santa Fe Institute again, while retaining his University of New Mexico affiliation, and in 2008 he was promoted to full professor at UNM. His primary appointment was in the Department of Computer Science, with a joint appointment in the UNM Department of Physics and Astronomy. In 2012, Moore left the University of New Mexico and became full-time resident faculty at the
Santa Fe Institute
The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, includ ...
.
Moore has also served on the
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. ...
three-body problem
In physics and classical mechanics, the three-body problem is the problem of taking the initial positions and velocities (or momenta) of three point masses and solving for their subsequent motion according to Newton's laws of motion and Newton's ...
, showing that it is possible in
Newtonian mechanics
Newton's laws of motion are three basic laws of classical mechanics that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws can be paraphrased as follows:
# A body remains at rest, or in motion ...
for three equal-mass bodies to follow each other around a shared orbit along a figure-eight shaped curve. Moore's results were found through numerical computations, and they were made mathematically rigorous in 2000 by Alain Chenciner and Richard Montgomery and shown computationally to be
stable
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; the ...
by Carlès Simo. Later researchers showed that similar solutions to the three-body problem are also possible under
general relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...
, Einstein's more accurate description of the effects of gravitation on moving bodies. After his original work on the problem, Moore collaborated with Michael Nauenberg to find many complex orbits for systems of more than three bodies, including one system in which twelve bodies trace out the four equatorial cycles of a
cuboctahedron
A cuboctahedron is a polyhedron with 8 triangular faces and 6 square faces. A cuboctahedron has 12 identical vertices, with 2 triangles and 2 squares meeting at each, and 24 identical edges, each separating a triangle from a square. As such, it ...
.
In 2001, Moore and John M. Robson showed that the problem of tiling one
polyomino
A polyomino is a plane geometric figure formed by joining one or more equal squares edge to edge. It is a polyform whose cells are squares. It may be regarded as a finite subset of the regular square tiling.
Polyominoes have been used in pop ...
with copies of another is
NP-complete
In computational complexity theory, a problem is NP-complete when:
# it is a problem for which the correctness of each solution can be verified quickly (namely, in polynomial time) and a brute-force search algorithm can find a solution by tryi ...
.
Moore has also been active in the field of
network science
Network science is an academic field which studies complex networks such as telecommunication networks, computer networks, biological networks, cognitive and semantic networks, and social networks, considering distinct elements or actors repre ...
, with many notable publications in the field. In work with
Aaron Clauset
Aaron Clauset is an American computer scientist who works in the areas of Network Science, Machine Learning, and Complex Systems. He is currently a professor of computer science at the University of Colorado Boulder and is external faculty at t ...
,
David Kempe
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
, and
Dimitris Achlioptas Dimitris (Δημήτρης) is the Modern Greek form of the older forms Demetrios, Dimitrios (Δημήτριος, usually Latinized as Demetrius) and may refer to:
*Dimitris Arvanitis (born 1980), Greek professional football defender who plays for ...
, Moore showed that the appearance of
power law
In statistics, a power law is a Function (mathematics), functional relationship between two quantities, where a Relative change and difference, relative change in one quantity results in a proportional relative change in the other quantity, inde ...
s in the
degree distribution
In the study of graphs and networks, the degree of a node in a network is the number of connections it has to other nodes and the degree distribution is the probability distribution of these degrees over the whole network.
Definition
The degree o ...
of
network
Network, networking and networked may refer to:
Science and technology
* Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects
* Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks
Mathematics
...
s can be illusory: network models such as the
Erdős–Rényi model
In the mathematical field of graph theory, the Erdős–Rényi model is either of two closely related models for generating random graphs or the evolution of a random network. They are named after Hungarian mathematicians Paul Erdős and Alfr ...
, whose degree distribution does not obey a power law, may nevertheless appear to exhibit one when measured using
traceroute
In computing, traceroute and tracert are computer network diagnostic commands for displaying possible routes (paths) and measuring transit delays of packets across an Internet Protocol (IP) network. The history of the route is recorded as th ...
-like tools. In work with Clauset and
Mark Newman
Mark Newman is an English-American physicist and Anatol Rapoport Distinguished University Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan, as well as an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute. He is known for his fundamental contri ...
, Moore developed a probabilistic model of
hierarchical clustering
In data mining and statistics, hierarchical clustering (also called hierarchical cluster analysis or HCA) is a method of cluster analysis that seeks to build a hierarchy of clusters. Strategies for hierarchical clustering generally fall into ...
for complex networks, and showed that their model predicts clustering robustly in the face of changes to the link structure of the network.
Other topics in Moore's research include
modeling
undecidable problem
In computability theory and computational complexity theory, an undecidable problem is a decision problem for which it is proved to be impossible to construct an algorithm that always leads to a correct yes-or-no answer. The halting problem is an ...
s by physical systems,
phase transition
In chemistry, thermodynamics, and other related fields, a phase transition (or phase change) is the physical process of transition between one state of a medium and another. Commonly the term is used to refer to changes among the basic states of ...
s in random instances of the
Boolean satisfiability problem
In logic and computer science, the Boolean satisfiability problem (sometimes called propositional satisfiability problem and abbreviated SATISFIABILITY, SAT or B-SAT) is the problem of determining if there exists an interpretation that satisfie ...
,
the unlikelihood of success in the
search for extraterrestrial intelligence
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other pl ...
due to the indistinguishability of advanced signaling technologies from random noise,
the inability of certain types of
quantum algorithm
In quantum computing, a quantum algorithm is an algorithm which runs on a realistic model of quantum computation, the most commonly used model being the quantum circuit model of computation. A classical (or non-quantum) algorithm is a finite sequ ...
to solve
graph isomorphism
In graph theory, an isomorphism of graphs ''G'' and ''H'' is a bijection between the vertex sets of ''G'' and ''H''
: f \colon V(G) \to V(H)
such that any two vertices ''u'' and ''v'' of ''G'' are adjacent in ''G'' if and only if f(u) and f(v) a ...
,
and attack-resistant
quantum cryptography
Quantum cryptography is the science of exploiting quantum mechanical properties to perform cryptographic tasks. The best known example of quantum cryptography is quantum key distribution which offers an information-theoretically secure solution ...
.
Awards and honors
In 2013, Moore became the inaugural member of the
Zachary Karate Club
Zachary's karate club is a social network of a university karate club, described in the paper "An Information Flow Model for Conflict and Fission in Small Groups" by Wayne W. Zachary. The network became a popular example of community structure in n ...
Club.
In 2014, Moore was elected as a Fellow of the
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
for his fundamental contributions at the interface between nonlinear physics,
statistical physics
Statistical physics is a branch of physics that evolved from a foundation of statistical mechanics, which uses methods of probability theory and statistics, and particularly the Mathematics, mathematical tools for dealing with large populations ...
and computer science, including complex network analysis, phase transitions in NP-complete problems, and the computational complexity of physical simulation.
In 2015 he was elected as a
fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
of the
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...
.
In 2017 he was elected as a Fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...