Paul Zimmermann (born 13 November 1964) is a French computational mathematician, working at

INRIA The National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) () is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics. It was created under the name ''Institut de recherche en informatiq ...

. Zimmermann co-authored the book Computational Mathematics with SageMath used by Mathematical students worldwide. His interests include asymptotically fast arithmetic—he wrote a book on algorithms for

computer arithmetic In computing, an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) is a combinational digital circuit that performs arithmetic and bitwise operations on integer binary numbers. This is in contrast to a floating-point unit (FPU), which operates on floating point numb ...

with Richard Brent. He has developed some of the fastest available code for manipulating polynomials over

GF(2) (also denoted \mathbb F_2, or \mathbb Z/2\mathbb Z) is the finite field of two elements (GF is the initialism of ''Galois field'', another name for finite fields). Notations and \mathbb Z_2 may be encountered although they can be confused with ...

, and for calculating hypergeometric constants to billions of decimal places. He is associated with the CARAMEL project to develop efficient arithmetic, in a general context and in particular in the context of

algebraic curve In mathematics, an affine algebraic plane curve is the zero set of a polynomial in two variables. A projective algebraic plane curve is the zero set in a projective plane of a homogeneous polynomial in three variables. An affine algebraic plane c ...

s of small

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

; arithmetic on polynomials of very large degree turns out to be useful in

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...

s for point-counting on such curves. He is also interested in computational number theory. In particular, he has contributed to some of the record computations in integer factorisation and discrete logarithm. He has been an active developer of the GMP-ECM implementation of the

elliptic curve In mathematics, an elliptic curve is a smooth, projective, algebraic curve of genus one, on which there is a specified point . An elliptic curve is defined over a field and describes points in , the Cartesian product of with itself. If ...

method for integer factorisation and of

MPFR The GNU Multiple Precision Floating-Point Reliable Library (GNU MPFR) is a GNU portable C library for arbitrary-precision binary floating-point computation with correct rounding, based on GNU Multi-Precision Library. Library MPFR's computatio ...

, an arbitrary precision floating point library with correct rounding. He is also a coauthor of the CADO-NFS software tool, which was used to factor

RSA-240 In mathematics, the RSA numbers are a set of large semiprimes (numbers with exactly two prime factors) that were part of the RSA Factoring Challenge. The challenge was to find the prime factors of each number. It was created by RSA Laboratories in ...

in record time. In a 2014 blog post, Zimmermann said that he would refuse invitations to review papers submitted to gold (author-pays)

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

and

hybrid open access journal A hybrid open-access journal is a subscription journal in which some of the articles are open access. This status typically requires the payment of a publication fee (also called an article processing charge or APC) to the publisher in order to p ...

s, because he disagrees with the publication mechanism.

References

External links

* http://www.loria.fr/~zimmerma/ Living people 1964 births French mathematicians Free software people Free software programmers GNU people {{france-mathematician-stub