Scott Joel Aaronson (born May 21, 1981) is an American

theoretical computer scientist computer science (TCS) is a subset of general computer science and mathematics that focuses on mathematical aspects of computer science such as the theory of computation, lambda calculus, and type theory. It is difficult to circumscribe the th ...

and David J. Bruton Jr. Centennial Professor of Computer Science at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. His primary areas of research are

quantum computing Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Though ...

and

computational complexity theory In theoretical computer science and mathematics, computational complexity theory focuses on classifying computational problems according to their resource usage, and relating these classes to each other. A computational problem is a task solved by ...

Early life and education

Aaronson grew up in the United States, though he spent a year in Asia when his father—a

science writer Science journalism conveys reporting about science to the public. The field typically involves interactions between scientists, journalists, and the public. Origins Modern science journalism dates back to '' Digdarshan'' (means showing the d ...

turned public-relations executive—was posted to Hong Kong. He enrolled in a school there that permitted him to skip ahead several years in math, but upon returning to the US, he found his education restrictive, getting bad grades and having run-ins with teachers. He enrolled in The Clarkson School, a

gifted education Gifted education (also known as gifted and talented education (GATE), talented and gifted programs (TAG), or G/T education) is a broad group of special practices, procedures, and theories used in the education of children who have been identified a ...

program run by

Clarkson University Clarkson University is a private research university with its main campus in Potsdam, New York, and additional graduate program and research facilities in the New York Capital Region and Beacon, New York. It was founded in 1896 and has an enr ...

, which enabled Aaronson to apply for colleges while only in his freshman year of high school. He was accepted into

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, where he obtained his BSc in

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

in 2000,CV
from Aaronson's web site and where he resided at the

Telluride House The Telluride House, formally the Cornell Branch of the Telluride Association (CBTA), and commonly referred to as just "Telluride", is a highly selective intentional community, residential community of Cornell University students and faculty. ...

. He then attended 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 ...

, for his PhD, which he got in 2004 under the supervision of

Umesh Vazirani Umesh Virkumar Vazirani is an Indian-American academic who is the Roger A. Strauch Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and the director of the Berkeley Quantum Computation Center. Hi ...

. Aaronson had shown ability in mathematics from an early age, teaching himself

calculus Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithm ...

at the age of 11, provoked by symbols in a babysitter's textbook. He discovered

computer programming Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as ana ...

at age 11, and felt he lagged behind peers, who had already been coding for years. In part due to Aaronson getting into advanced mathematics before getting into computer programming, he felt drawn to theoretical computing, particularly

. At Cornell, he became interested in quantum computing and devoted himself to computational complexity and

Career

After

postdoctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...

s 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 ...

and the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality ...

, he took a faculty position at MIT in 2007. His primary area of research is

and

more generally. In the summer of 2016 he moved from MIT to the

as David J. Bruton Jr. Centennial Professor of Computer Science and as the founding director of UT Austin's new Quantum Information Center.Shetl-Optimized
"From Boston to Austin"
February 28, 2016.

Awards

* Aaronson is one of two winners of the 2012

Alan T. Waterman Award The Alan T. Waterman Award, named after Alan Tower Waterman, is the United States's highest honorary award for scientists no older than 40, or no more than 10 years past receipt of their Ph.D. It is awarded on a yearly basis by the National Scien ...

. * Best Student Paper Awards at the

Computational Complexity Conference The Computational Complexity Conference (CCC), is an academic conference in the field of theoretical computer science whose roots date to 1986. It fosters research in computational complexity theory, and is typically held annually between mid-May an ...

for the papers "Limitations of Quantum Advice and One-Way Communication" (2004) and "Quantum Certificate Complexity" (2003). * Danny Lewin Best Student Paper Award at the

Symposium on Theory of Computing The Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC) is an academic conference in the field of theoretical computer science. STOC has been organized annually since 1969, typically in May or June; the conference is sponsored by the Association for ...

for the paper "Lower Bounds for Local Search by Quantum Arguments" (2004). * 2009

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. The White ...

* 2017

Simons Investigator The Simons Foundation is a private foundation established in 1994 by Marilyn and Jim Simons with offices in New York City. As one of the largest charitable organizations in the US with assets of over $5 billion in 2022, the foundation's mission ...

* He was elected as an

ACM Fellow ACM or A.C.M. may refer to: Aviation * AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile * Air chief marshal * Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting * Air cycle machine * Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia Computing ...

in 2019 "for contributions to quantum computing and computational complexity". * He was awarded the 2020 ACM Prize in Computing "for groundbreaking contributions to quantum computing".

Popular work

He is a founder of the ''Complexity Zoo''

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...

, which catalogs all classes of

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) ...

. He is the author of the much-read blog "Shtetl-Optimized". In the interview to ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it i ...

'' he answers why his blog is called ''shtetl-optimized'', and about his preoccupation to the past: He also wrote the essay "Who Can Name The Bigger Number?". The latter work, widely distributed in

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

, uses the concept of Busy Beaver Numbers as described by

Tibor Radó Tibor Radó (June 2, 1895 – December 29, 1965) was a Hungarian mathematician who moved to the United States after World War I. Biography Radó was born in Budapest and between 1913 and 1915 attended the Polytechnic Institute, studying civ ...

to illustrate the limits of

computability Computability is the ability to solve a problem in an effective manner. It is a key topic of the field of computability theory within mathematical logic and the theory of computation within computer science. The computability of a problem is close ...

in a pedagogic environment. He has also taught a graduate-level survey course, "Quantum Computing Since Democritus", for which notes are available online, and have been published as a book by

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

. It weaves together disparate topics into a cohesive whole, including

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...

, complexity, free will,

time travel Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...

, the

anthropic principle The anthropic principle, also known as the "observation selection effect", is the hypothesis, first proposed in 1957 by Robert Dicke, that there is a restrictive lower bound on how statistically probable our observations of the universe are, beca ...

and more. Many of these interdisciplinary applications of computational complexity were later fleshed out in his article, "Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity". Since then, Aaronson published a book entitled ''

Quantum Computing Since Democritus Quantum Computing Since Democritus is a 2013 book on quantum information science written by Scott Aaronson. It is loosely based on a course Aaronson taught at the University of Waterloo, Canada, the lecture notes for which are available online. ...

'' based on the course. An article of Aaronson's, "The Limits of Quantum Computers", was published in ''

'', and he was a

guest speaker Public speaking, also called oratory or oration, has traditionally meant the act of speaking face to face to a live audience. Today it includes any form of speaking (formally and informally) to an audience, including pre-recorded speech deliver ...

at the 2007 Foundational Questions in Science Institute conference. Aaronson is frequently cited in the non-academic press, such as ''

Science News ''Science News (SN)'' is an American bi-weekly magazine devoted to articles about new scientific and technical developments, typically gleaned from recent scientific and technical journals. History ''Science News'' has been published since 1 ...

,'' ''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...

,''

ZDNet ZDNET is a business technology news website owned and operated by Red Ventures. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication. Hist ...

, ''

Slashdot ''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a social news website that originally advertised itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories concerning science, technology, and politics that are submitted and evalu ...

,'' ''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...

,'' ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

,'' and ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' magazine.

Love Communications plagiarism

Aaronson was the subject of media attention in October 2007, when he accused Australian

advertising agency An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generally ...

Love Communications of plagiarizing a lecture he wrote on

in an advertisement of theirs. He alleged that a commercial for Ricoh Australia by Sydney-based agency Love Communications appropriated content almost verbatim from the lecture. Aaronson received an email from the agency claiming to have sought legal advice and saying they did not believe that they were in violation of his copyright. Dissatisfied, Aaronson pursued the matter, and the agency settled the dispute without admitting wrongdoing by making a charitable contribution to two science organizations of his choice. Concerning this matter, Aaronson stated, "Someone suggested n my bloga cameo with the models but if it was between that and a free printer, I think I'd take the printer."

Personal life

Aaronson is married to computer scientist

Dana Moshkovitz Dana Moshkovitz Aaronson ( he, דנה מושקוביץ) is an Israeli theoretical computer scientist whose research topics include approximation algorithms and probabilistically checkable proofs. She is an associate professor of computer science ...

References

External links

*
Aaronson's blogAaronson homepageUT Austin Quantum Information Center homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aaronson, Scott American people of Jewish descent Jewish scientists Cornell University alumni UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni MIT School of Engineering faculty Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars Theoretical computer scientists Science bloggers 1981 births Living people American expatriates in Hong Kong Simons Investigator University of Texas at Austin faculty Quantum information scientists Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers