Richard E. Crandall (December 29, 1947 – December 20, 2012) was an American

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

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 (al ...

who made contributions to

computational number theory In mathematics and computer science, computational number theory, also known as algorithmic number theory, is the study of computational methods for investigating and solving problems in number theory and arithmetic geometry, including algorithm ...

Background

Richard Crandall was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and spent two years at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

before transferring to

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 ...

in Portland, Oregon, where he graduated in physics and wrote his undergraduate thesis on randomness.

Career and accomplishments

Crandall earned a Ph.D in theoretical physics from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

. In 1978, he became a physics professor at Reed College, where he taught courses in experimental physics and computational physics for many years, ultimately becoming Vollum Professor of Science and director of the Center for Advanced Computation. He was also, at various times, Chief Scientist at

NeXT Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...

, Inc., Chief Cryptographer and Distinguished Scientist at

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

, and head of Apple's Advanced Computation Group. He was a pioneer in experimental mathematics. He developed the

irrational base discrete weighted transform In mathematics, the irrational base discrete weighted transform (IBDWT) is a variant of the fast Fourier transform using an irrational base; it was developed by Richard Crandall (Reed College), Barry Fagin (Dartmouth College) and Joshua Doenias ...

, a method of finding very large primes. He wrote several books and many scholarly papers on scientific programming and computation. Crandall was awarded numerous patents for his work in the field of

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

and wrote a poker program that could

bluff Bluff or The Bluff may refer to: Places Australia * Bluff, Queensland, Australia, a town * The Bluff, Queensland (Ipswich), a rural locality in the city of Ipswich * The Bluff, Queensland (Toowoomba Region), a rural locality * Bluff River (New ...

. He also owned and operated PSI Press, an online publishing company.

Personal life

Crandall was part

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

and proud of his Native heritage. He fronted a band called the Chameleons in 1981. He was working on an intellectual biography of Steve Jobs when he collapsed at his home in Portland, Oregon, from acute

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

. He died 10 days later, on December 20, 2012, at the age of 64.

Books

*''Pascal Applications for the Sciences.'' John Wiley & Sons, New York 1983. * with M. M. Colgrove: ''Scientific Programming with Macintosh Pascal''. John Wiley & Sons, New York 1986. * ''Mathematica for the Sciences, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass, 1991. * ''Projects in Scientific Computation.'' Springer 1994. * ''Topics in Advanced Scientific Computation.'' Springer 1996. * with M. Levich: ''A Network Orange.'' Springer 1997. * with C. Pomerance: ''Prime numbers: A Computational Perspective.'' Springer 2001.

References

External links

Professor Richard E. Crandall
many of Crandall's papers can be found here
Nicholas Wheeler
*

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 ...

Remembering Richard Crandall (1947-2012)
* David Bailey and

Jonathan Borwein Jonathan Michael Borwein (20 May 1951 – 2 August 2016) was a Scottish mathematician who held an appointment as Laureate Professor of mathematics at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He was a close associate of David H. Bailey, and they ...

Mathematician/physicist/inventor Richard Crandall dies at 64

David BroadhurstA prime puzzle in honor of Richard Crandall
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crandall, Richard 1947 births 2012 deaths People from Ann Arbor, Michigan Scientists from Portland, Oregon 20th-century American inventors 21st-century American inventors American atheists American computer scientists Apple Inc. employees Computational physicists Deaths from cancer in Oregon Deaths from acute leukemia Reed College faculty Reed College alumni