Paul Michael Béla Vitányi (born 21 July 1944) is a Dutch computer scientist, professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, ) is a public university, public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Established in 1632 by municipal authorities, it is the fourth-oldest academic institution in the Netherlan ...

and researcher at the Dutch

Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica The (abbr. CWI; English: "National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science") is a research centre in the field of mathematics and theoretical computer science. It is part of the institutes organization of the Dutch Research Cou ...

Biography

Vitányi was born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

to a Dutch mother and a Hungarian father. He received his degree of mathematical engineer from

Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

in 1971 and his Ph.D. from the Free University of Amsterdam in 1978..

Career

Vitányi was appointed professor of computer science at the

, and researcher at the National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands ( CWI) where he is currently a CWI Fellow. He was guest professor at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

in 1978; research associate at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

in 1985/1986; Gaikoku-Jin Kenkyuin (councilor professor) at INCOCSAT at the

Tokyo Institute of Technology The Tokyo Institute of Technology () was a public university in Meguro, Tokyo, Japan. It merged with Tokyo Medical and Dental University to form the Institute of Science Tokyo on 1 October 2024. The Tokyo Institute of Technology was a De ...

in 1998; visiting professor at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

in 2004, at

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

in 1996 and at the National ICT of Australia

NICTA NICTA (formerly named National ICT Australia Ltd) was Australia's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence and is now known as CSIRO's Data61. The term "Centre of Excellence" is common marketing terminology ...

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW) is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was established in 1949. The university comprises seven faculties, through which it offers bachelor's, master's and docto ...

in 2004/2005; visiting professor at and adjunct professor of computer science at the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

from 2005. Vitányi has served on the editorial boards of ''Distributed Computing'' (1987–2003), ''Information Processing Letters''; the ''Theory of Computing Systems''; the ''Parallel Processing Letters''; the ''International journal of Foundations of Computer Science''; the ''Entropy''; the ''Information''; the '' SN Computer Science''; the ''Journal of Computer and Systems Sciences'' (guest editor), and elsewhere.

Awards & honours

* 1999 – National Outstanding Scientific and Technological Book Award of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

* 2003 – CWI Fellow * 2003 – Bronze Medal

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

* 2005 – Adjunct Professor Computer Science

* 2007 –

Knighthood A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

in the

Order of the Netherlands Lion The Order of the Netherlands Lion, also known as the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands (, ) is a Dutch honours system, Dutch order of chivalry founded by William I of the Netherlands on 29 September 1815. The Order of the Netherlands Lion wa ...

, * 2007 –

International Federation for Information Processing The International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) is a global organisation for researchers and professionals working in the field of computing to conduct research, develop standards and promote information sharing. Established in 19 ...

(IFIP) Silver Core Award * 2011 – Member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

. * 2020 - McGuffey Longevity Award of the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA).

Work

Vitányi has worked on

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 ...

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 ...

distributed Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...

and

parallel computing Parallel computing is a type of computing, computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. ...

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

and prediction, physics of computation,

Kolmogorov complexity In algorithmic information theory (a subfield of computer science and mathematics), the Kolmogorov complexity of an object, such as a piece of text, is the length of a shortest computer program (in a predetermined programming language) that prod ...

information theory Information theory is the mathematical study of the quantification (science), quantification, Data storage, storage, and telecommunications, communication of information. The field was established and formalized by Claude Shannon in the 1940s, ...

and

quantum computing A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena. On small scales, physical matter exhibits properties of wave-particle duality, both particles and waves, and quantum computing takes advantage of this behavior using s ...

, publishing over 200 research papers and some books. As of 2020 his work on normalized compression distance was used in 15 US patents and on normalized Google distance in 10 US patents. Together with Ming Li he pioneered theory and applications of Kolmogorov complexity. They co-authored the textbook ''An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications'', parts of which have been translated into Chinese, Russian and Japanese. The textbook received the William Holmes McGuffey Longevity Award of the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) (2020), and the Chinese translation received the National Outstanding Scientific and Technological Book Award of the

(1999).

References

External links

Personal web page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vitanyi, Paul 1944 births Living people Dutch computer scientists Theoretical computer scientists Researchers in distributed computing Delft University of Technology alumni Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam alumni Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam Scientists from Budapest Knights of the Order of the Netherlands Lion