Norman Harry Packard (born 1954 in
Billings, Montana
Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Metrop ...
) is a
chaos theory
Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have co ...
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 ...
and one of the founders of the
Prediction Company Prediction Company was founded in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, in March 1991 by J. Doyne Farmer, Norman Packard, and James McGill. The company used forecasting techniques to build black-box trading systems for financial markets, mainly employing st ...
and
ProtoLife. He is an alumnus of
Reed College
Reed College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus in the Eastmoreland neighborhood, with Tudor-Gothic style architecture, and a forested canyon nature preserve at ...
and the
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...
. Packard is known for his contributions to chaos theory, complex systems, and artificial life. He coined the phrase "the edge of chaos".
Biography
Between 1976 and 1981, Packard formed the
Dynamical Systems Collective at
UC Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...
with fellow physics graduate students,
Rob Shaw,
Doyne Farmer
J. Doyne Farmer (born 22 June 1952) is an American complex systems scientist and entrepreneur with interests in chaos theory, complexity and econophysics. He is Baillie Gifford Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, where he is also Direct ...
, and
James Crutchfield
James Crutchfield (May 25, 1912 – December 7, 2001) was a St. Louis barrelhouse blues singer, piano player and songwriter whose career spanned seven decades. His repertoire consisted of original and classic blues and boogie-woogie and Depress ...
. The collective was best known for its work in probing chaotic systems for signs of order.
Around the same time, he worked with
Doyne Farmer and other friends in
Santa Cruz, California
Santa Cruz (Spanish for "Holy Cross") is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 62,956. Situated on the northern edge of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz is a pop ...
to form the
Eudaemons
The Eudaemons were a small group headed by graduate physics students J. Doyne Farmer and Norman Packard at the University of California Santa Cruz in the late 1970s. The group's immediate objective was to find a way to beat roulette using a conc ...
collective , to develop a strategy for beating the
roulette
Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning ''little wheel'' which was likely developed from the Italian game Biribi''.'' In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the ...
wheel using a toe-operated computer. The computer could, in theory, predict in what area a roulette ball would land on a wheel, giving the player a significant statistical advantage over the house. Although the project itself was a success, they ran into practical difficulty employing the technique on-site in Las Vegas casinos. The experiences of Norman, Doyne Farmer, and crew were later chronicled in the book ''
The Eudaemonic Pie
''The Eudaemonic Pie'' is a non-fiction book about gambling by American author Thomas A. Bass. The book was initially published in April 1985 by Houghton Mifflin.
Overview
The book focuses on a group of University of California, Santa Cruz, ph ...
'' (1985) by Thomas Bass. Their experience was also chronicled on the History Channel television series "Breaking Vegas."
In 1982, Packard won a NATO post-doctoral fellowship to study at the
Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques
The Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHÉS; English: Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies) is a French research institute supporting advanced research in mathematics and theoretical physics. It is located in Bures-sur-Yvette, just ...
in
Bures-sur-Yvette
Bures-sur-Yvette (, literally ''Bures on Yvette'') is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France.
Geography
Bures-sur-Yvette is located in the Vallée de Chevreuse on the river Yvette, along which the RER line&nbs ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. One year later, he joined the Princeton
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...
. At the IAS, he worked with colleagues
Stephen Wolfram
Stephen Wolfram (; born 29 August 1959) is a British-American computer scientist, physicist, and businessman. He is known for his work in computer science, mathematics, and theoretical physics. In 2012, he was named a fellow of the American Ma ...
and
Rob Shaw to explain
complex systems
A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...
and the tendency for matter to organize itself. Subsequently, Packard has made contributions to the field of Artificial Life, including the definition of Evolutionary Activity.
Professional work
Center for Complex Systems Research
In 1985 Packard moved with Wolfram to the physics department of the
University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...
, where they founded the Center for Complex Systems Research.
Santa Fe Institute
Packard was involved with 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 ...
over many years, serving in several capacities including External Professor and member of the chair of the Science Steering Committee.
Prediction Company
In the spring of 1985, Packard and
Doyne Farmer
J. Doyne Farmer (born 22 June 1952) is an American complex systems scientist and entrepreneur with interests in chaos theory, complexity and econophysics. He is Baillie Gifford Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, where he is also Direct ...
realized that their research in fields such as chaos, Genetic Algorithms and cellular automata could help build a system for predicting the
stock market
A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include ''securities'' listed on a public stock exchange, as ...
. Five years later they founded
Prediction Company Prediction Company was founded in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, in March 1991 by J. Doyne Farmer, Norman Packard, and James McGill. The company used forecasting techniques to build black-box trading systems for financial markets, mainly employing st ...
, a small company in
Santa Fe, NM
Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. The name “Sa ...
dedicated to making a model for predicting what a market would do during a certain time period. A brief outline of some of the genetic algorithm techniques he used in the early days is presented in chapter 2 of reference 5 below. In 2004, Prediction Company received the "Employer of Choice" award in the small size category for the State of
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
. Prediction Company was eventually acquired by
UBS
UBS Group AG is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres ...
.
European Center for Living Technology
In 2004, Packard was one of the founders of the European Centre for Living Technology (ECLT), hosted by the University of Venice, Ca' Foscari. The ECLT received its first funding from PACE (Programmable Artificial Cell Evolution), a project coordinated by John S. McCaskill and funded by the European Union. From its inception in 2004 and for over a decade Packard has served on its science board, and as co-director.
ProtoLife
While in Venice, Packard founded
ProtoLife, the first company to capitalize on living technology. The goal of the company is to optimize complex chemical reactions and other complex processes. The company was launched in
Venice, Italy
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islan ...
, and is currently based in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
having changed name to Daptics (see below).
Lucky Sort
In 2011 Packard joined Lucky Sort as Chief Science Officer. At Lucky Sort he guides research to discover and display structure in high volume text data streams. Lucky Sort was eventually acquired by Twitter.
Daptics
In 2018, Packard launched a web-based optimization and discovery tool on the internet (a form of
Software as a Service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.
SaaS is con ...
), changing the company name from
ProtoLife to Daptics,
Daptics
/ref> to better reflect its new focus. The goal of the company is to optimize complex chemical reactions and other complex processes. The company is currently based in San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
.
Books
* ''Artificial Life VII'', with Mark A. Bedau, John S. McCaskill, Steen Rasmussen. 2000
* ''Protocells'', with Steen Rasmussen, Mark Bedau, Liaohai Chen, David Deamer, David Krakauer, and Peter Stadler
See also
* Eudaemons
The Eudaemons were a small group headed by graduate physics students J. Doyne Farmer and Norman Packard at the University of California Santa Cruz in the late 1970s. The group's immediate objective was to find a way to beat roulette using a conc ...
References
* ''An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms'' by Melanie Mitchell, MIT Press, 1998.
* Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick
James Gleick (; born August 1, 1954) is an American author and historian of science whose work has chronicled the cultural impact of modern technology. Recognized for his writing about complex subjects through the techniques of narrative nonficti ...
.
External links
ProtoLife
{{DEFAULTSORT:Packard, Norman
21st-century American physicists
Cellular automatists
Chaos theorists
Researchers of artificial life
Reed College alumni
University of California, Santa Cruz alumni
1954 births
Living people
Complex systems scientists
Santa Fe Institute people