Przemysław (Przemek) Prusinkiewicz is a Polish

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

who advanced the idea that

Fibonacci number In mathematics, the Fibonacci sequence is a Integer sequence, sequence in which each element is the sum of the two elements that precede it. Numbers that are part of the Fibonacci sequence are known as Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted . Many w ...

s in nature can be in part understood as the expression of certain algebraic constraints on

free group In mathematics, the free group ''F'S'' over a given set ''S'' consists of all words that can be built from members of ''S'', considering two words to be different unless their equality follows from the group axioms (e.g. ''st'' = ''suu''− ...

s, specifically as certain Lindenmayer grammars. Prusinkiewicz's main work is on the modeling of plant growth through such grammars.

Early life and education

in 1978 Prusinkiewicz received his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from

Warsaw University of Technology The Warsaw University of Technology () is one of the leading institutes of technology in Poland and one of the largest in Central Europe. It employs 2,453 teaching faculty, with 357 professors (including 145 titular professors). The student body ...

Career

As of 2008 he was a 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 Calgary {{Infobox university , name = University of Calgary , image = University of Calgary coat of arms without motto scroll.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms , former ...

Awards

Prusinkiewicz received the 1997

SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference centered around computer graphics organized by ACM, starting in 1974 in Boulder, CO. The main conference has always been held in North ...

''Computer Graphics Achievement Award'' for his work.

Influences

In 2006, Michael Hensel examined the work of Prusinkiewicz and his collaborators - the Calgary team - in an article published in

Architectural Design Building design, also called architectural design, refers to the broadly based architectural, engineering and technical applications to the design of buildings. All building projects require the services of a building designer, typically a licen ...

. Hensel argued that the Calgary team's computational plant models or "virtual plants" which culminated in software they developed capable of modeling various plant characteristics, could provide important lessons for architectural design. Architects would learn from "the self-organisation processes underlying the growth of living organisms" and the Calgary team's work uncovered some of that potential. Their computational models allowed for a "quantitative understanding of developmental mechanisms" and had the potential to "lead to a synthetic understanding of the interplay between various aspects of development." Prusinkiewicz's work was informed by that of the Hungarian biologist

Aristid Lindenmayer Aristid Lindenmayer (17 November 1925 – 30 October 1989) was a Hungarian biologist. In 1968 he developed a type of formal language today called L-systems or Lindenmayer systems. Using those systems Lindenmayer modelled the behaviour of cells ...

who developed the theory of

L-systems An L-system or Lindenmayer system is a wikt:parallel, parallel rewriting system and a type of formal grammar. An L-system consists of an alphabet of symbols that can be used to make string (computer science), strings, a collection of Production ...

in 1968. Lindenmayer used L-systems to describe the behaviour of plant cells and to model the growth processes, plant development and the branching architecture of plant development.

Publications

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References

External links

Biography of Przemysław Prusinkiewicz
from the

Laboratory website
at the

Warsaw University of Technology alumni Polish mathematicians Living people Computer graphics professionals Computer graphics researchers Fibonacci numbers Polish computer scientists Year of birth missing (living people) Academic staff of the University of Calgary {{poland-mathematician-stub