Piet Hut (born September 26, 1952) is a Dutch-American astrophysicist, who divides his time between research in computer simulations of dense stellar systems and broadly interdisciplinary collaborations, ranging from other fields in natural science to computer science, cognitive psychology and philosophy. He is currently the Head of the Program in

Interdisciplinary Studies Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

at the

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 ...

(IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. Asteroid 17031 Piethut is named after him, in honor of his work in planetary dynamics and for co-founding the

B612 Foundation The B612 Foundation is a private nonprofit foundation headquartered in Mill Valley, California, United States, dedicated to planetary science and planetary defense against asteroids and other near-Earth object (NEO) impacts. It is led mainl ...

, which focuses on prevention of asteroid impacts on Earth.

Career

In the Netherlands, Hut did a double PhD program, at Utrecht University, in particle physics under

Martinus Veltman Martinus Justinus Godefriedus "Tini" Veltman (; 27 June 1931 – 4 January 2021) was a Dutch theoretical physicist. He shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in physics with his former PhD student Gerardus 't Hooft for their work on particle theory. Biogr ...

and in Amsterdam in astrophysics under

Ed van den Heuvel Edward Peter Jacobus (Ed) van den Heuvel (born 2 November 1940) is a Dutch astronomer and emeritus professor at the Astronomical Institute Anton Pannekoek of the University of Amsterdam. Van den Heuvel is well known for his work on the formati ...

, resulting in a PhD at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

. Previously an assistant professor at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, Hut was in 1985, at the age of 32, appointed as a full professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. At the time, he was the youngest professor appointed there. Hut became a corresponding member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

in 1996.

Astrophysics research

An accomplished astrophysicist, Hut is best known for the

Barnes–Hut simulation The Barnes–Hut simulation (named after Josh Barnes and Piet Hut) is an approximation algorithm for performing an ''n''-body simulation. It is notable for having order O(''n'' log ''n'') compared to a direct-sum algorithm which would b ...

algorithm, developed with Joshua Barnes. By using a tree-based data structure, the Barnes–Hut method significantly speeds up the calculation of the gravitational motion of large numbers of stars, making accessible such problems as collisions between galaxies.

algorithm, which has become a standard in N-body problems, reduces its complexity to N log N. Hut introduced the concept of pseudo-synchronicity, which is now widely cited in the literature on tidal evolution of

exoplanets An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...

. He co-authored a graduate textbook "The Gravitational Million Body Problem"., invented a mathematical sequence called Piet Hut's "coat-hanger" sequence, and has pioneered the use of virtual worlds for research and education in (astro)physics. Hut is one of the founders of the

, MODEST, MICA, ACS, the GRAPE (Gravity Pipe) project, and AMUSE.

Interdisciplinary research

Hut's broadly interdisciplinary research started with his study of an asteroid impact to explain the demise of the dinosaurs, when he edited a review article for Nature with four paleontologists, two geologists and one other astrophysicist. He has also widely engaged in joint research with computer scientists and philosophers and cognitive psychologists. In recognition of his work, he was invited to participate in various conferences, spanning a range from a workshop with the

14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...

and five physicists in

Dharamsala Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855. The ...

, India to the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...

in Davos, Switzerland, and he has been invited as a member of the

Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...

Circle. Hut is one of the founders of the

Kira Institute The Kira Institute is a non-profit organization. It was founded in 1997 to encourage open inquiry concerning the nature of scientific knowledge and its relation to other perspectives drawn from a wide variety of fields. The founders were Piet Hut ...

Employment controversy

In July, 2000, IAS sued Hut in federal district court, seeking to enforce a 1996 agreement in which Hut had promised to resign by mid-2001. According to IAS Director

Phillip Griffiths Phillip Augustus Griffiths IV (born October 18, 1938) is an American mathematician, known for his work in the field of geometry, and in particular for the complex manifold approach to algebraic geometry. He was a major developer in particul ...

, Hut had been hired in expectation of his eventually succeeding professor

John N. Bahcall John Norris Bahcall (December 30, 1934 – August 17, 2005) was an American astrophysicist, best known for his contributions to the solar neutrino problem, the development of the Hubble Space Telescope and for his leadership and development of th ...

as leader of the astrophysics group, but "was not performing" at the required level. Hut's rebuttal was first, that his work was not inferior but only (to some eyes) unfashionable, and second, that he had been coerced into signing any agreement. Many prominent astrophysicists defended the quality of Hut's work, while others based their support on the importance of academic tenure to creative scholarship. The case was eventually settled out of court, with Hut transferring out of IAS's School of Natural Sciences while being appointed Head of a new Program in Interdisciplinary Studies.Robin Wilson
"The Professor Who Would Not Leave"
The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 24, 2000. (Subscription required to read full article)

References

External links