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Lance Jeremy Fortnow (born August 15, 1963) is a
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 ( ...
known for major results in
computational complexity In computer science, the computational complexity or simply complexity of an algorithm is the amount of resources required to run it. Particular focus is given to computation time (generally measured by the number of needed elementary operations) ...
and
interactive proof systems In computational complexity theory, an interactive proof system is an abstract machine that models computation as the exchange of messages between two parties: a ''prover'' and a ''verifier''. The parties interact by exchanging messages in order t ...
. He is currently Dean of the College of Computing at the
Illinois Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has pro ...
.


Biography

Lance Fortnow received a doctorate in applied mathematics from MIT in 1989, supervised by Michael Sipser. Since graduation, he has been on the faculty of the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
(1989–1999, 2003–2007),
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. Chart ...
(2008–2012) and the
Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
(2012–2019) as chair of the School of Computer Science. Fortnow was the founding editor-in-chief of the journal ''ACM Transactions on Computation Theory'' in 2009. He was the chair of
ACM SIGACT ACM SIGACT or SIGACT is the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory, whose purpose is support of research in theoretical computer science. It was founded in 1968 by Patrick C. Fischer. Publ ...
and succeeded by Paul Beame. He was the chair of the IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity from 2000 to 2006. In 2002, he began one of the first blogs devoted to
theoretical computer science Theoretical computer science (TCS) is a subset of general computer science and mathematics that focuses on mathematical aspects of computer science such as the theory of computation, lambda calculus, and type theory. It is difficult to circumsc ...
and has written for it since then. Since 2007, he has had a co-blogger,
William Gasarch William Ian Gasarch ( ; born 1959) is an American computer scientist known for his work in computational complexity theory, computability theory, computational learning theory, and Ramsey theory. He is currently a professor at the University ...
. In September 2009, Fortnow brought mainstream attention to complexity theory when he published an article surveying the progress made in the
P versus NP problem The P versus NP problem is a major unsolved problem in theoretical computer science. In informal terms, it asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified can also be quickly solved. The informal term ''quickly'', used above ...
in ''Communications'' of the Association of Computing Machinery.


Work

In his many publications, Fortnow has contributed important results to the field of
computational complexity In computer science, the computational complexity or simply complexity of an algorithm is the amount of resources required to run it. Particular focus is given to computation time (generally measured by the number of needed elementary operations) ...
. While still a graduate student at MIT, Fortnow showed that there are no perfect zero-knowledge protocols for
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 tryin ...
languages unless the
polynomial hierarchy In computational complexity theory, the polynomial hierarchy (sometimes called the polynomial-time hierarchy) is a hierarchy of complexity classes that generalize the classes NP and co-NP. Each class in the hierarchy is contained within PSPACE. ...
collapses. With Michael Sipser, he also demonstrated that relative to a specific
oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The wor ...
there exists a language in
co-NP In computational complexity theory, co-NP is a complexity class. A decision problem X is a member of co-NP if and only if its complement is in the complexity class NP. The class can be defined as follows: a decision problem is in co-NP precise ...
that does not have an interactive protocol. In November 1989, Fortnow received an email from
Noam Nisan Noam Nisan ( he, נעם ניסן; born June 20, 1961) is an Israeli computer scientist, a professor of computer science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is known for his research in computational complexity theory and algorithmic game t ...
showing that co-NP had multiple prover interactive proofs (MIP). With Carsten Lund and Howard Karloff, he used this result to develop an algebraic technique for the construction of interactive proof systems and prove that every language in the polynomial-time hierarchy has an interactive proof system. Their work was hardly two weeks old when
Adi Shamir Adi Shamir ( he, עדי שמיר; born July 6, 1952) is an Israeli cryptographer. He is a co-inventor of the Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA) algorithm (along with Ron Rivest and Len Adleman), a co-inventor of the Feige–Fiat–Shamir identifica ...
employed it to prove that IP= PSPACE. Quickly following up on this (January 17, 1990, less than two months after receiving Nisan's email) Fortnow, along with László Babai and Carsten Lund, proved that MIP= NEXP. These algebraic techniques were expanded further by Fortnow, Babai,
Leonid Levin Leonid Anatolievich Levin ( ; russian: Леони́д Анато́льевич Ле́вин; uk, Леоні́д Анато́лійович Ле́він; born November 2, 1948) is a Soviet-American mathematician and computer scientist. He is kn ...
and Mario Szegedy when they presented a new generic mechanism for checking computations. Fortnow has continued to publish on a variety of topics in the field of computational complexity including
derandomization A randomized algorithm is an algorithm that employs a degree of randomness as part of its logic or procedure. The algorithm typically uses uniformly random bits as an auxiliary input to guide its behavior, in the hope of achieving good performan ...
, sparse languages, and
oracle machine In complexity theory and computability theory, an oracle machine is an abstract machine used to study decision problems. It can be visualized as a Turing machine with a black box, called an oracle, which is able to solve certain problems in a s ...
s. Fortnow has also published on
quantum computing Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Thou ...
, game theory,
genome sequencing Whole genome sequencing (WGS), also known as full genome sequencing, complete genome sequencing, or entire genome sequencing, is the process of determining the entirety, or nearly the entirety, of the DNA sequence of an organism's genome at a ...
and
economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analy ...
. Fortnow's work in economics includes work in game theory, optimal strategies and prediction. With Duke Whang, he has examined the classic game theory problem of the
prisoner's dilemma The Prisoner's Dilemma is an example of a game analyzed in game theory. It is also a thought experiment that challenges two completely rational agents to a dilemma: cooperate with their partner for mutual reward, or betray their partner ("de ...
, extending the problem so that the dilemma is posed sequentially an infinite number of times. They investigated what strategies the players should take given the constraints that they draw their strategies from computationally bounded sets and introduce “grace periods” to prevent the dominance of vengeful strategies. Fortnow also examined the
logarithmic Logarithmic can refer to: * Logarithm, a transcendental function in mathematics * Logarithmic scale, the use of the logarithmic function to describe measurements * Logarithmic spiral, * Logarithmic growth * Logarithmic distribution, a discrete pr ...
market scoring rule (LMSR) with
market makers A market maker or liquidity provider is a company or an individual that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a tradable asset held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the '' bid–ask spread'', or ''turn.'' The benefit to the firm is that ...
. He helped to show that LMSR pricing is #P-hard and proposed an approximation technique for pricing permutation markets. He has also contributed to a study of the behavior of informed traders working with LMSR market makers. Fortnow has also written a popular science book, ''The Golden Ticket: P, NP and the Search for the Impossible'', which was loosely based on an article he had written for CACM in 2009. In his book, Fortnow provides a non-technical introduction to the P versus NP problem and its algorithmic limitations. He further describes his book and illustrates why NP problems are so important on the ''Data Skeptic podcast''."P vs NP"
''Data Skeptic'', 2017


Awards and honors

* 2007
ACM Fellow 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 ...
* NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow from 1992 to 1998 *
Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...
to the Netherlands in 1996 and 1997 * 2014 Nerode Prize


References


External links


Fortnow's home page

List of publications
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fortnow, Lance Living people Theoretical computer scientists Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Georgia Tech faculty 1963 births Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Science bloggers