Topic: Biography (Page 4)

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πŸ”— Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Soviet Union πŸ”— Russia πŸ”— Russia/technology and engineering in Russia πŸ”— Spaceflight πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— Transhumanism πŸ”— Russia/science and education in Russia πŸ”— Biography/arts and entertainment πŸ”— Rocketry

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (Russian: ΠšΠΎΠ½ΡΡ‚Π°Π½Ρ‚ΠΈΜΠ½ Эдуа́рдович Циолко́вский; 17 SeptemberΒ [O.S. 5 September]Β 1857 – 19 September 1935) was a Russian and Soviet rocket scientist who pioneered astronautics. Along with the Frenchman Robert Esnault-Pelterie, the Germans Hermann Oberth and Fritz von Opel, and the American Robert H. Goddard, he is one of the founding fathers of modern rocketry and astronautics. His works later inspired leading Soviet rocket-engineers Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko, who contributed to the success of the Soviet space program.

Tsiolkovsky spent most of his life in a log house on the outskirts of Kaluga, about 200Β km (120Β mi) southwest of Moscow. A recluse by nature, his unusual habits made him seem bizarre to his fellow townsfolk.

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πŸ”— The Portuguese Bank Note Crisis of 1925

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Portugal πŸ”— Numismatics

Artur VirgΓ­lio Alves Reis (Lisbon, 8 September 1896 – 9 June 1955) was a Portuguese criminal who perpetrated one of the largest frauds in history, against the Bank of Portugal in 1925, often called the Portuguese Bank Note Crisis.

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πŸ”— The man who did not have a conversation in over 50 years

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/Military biography πŸ”— Biography/military biography πŸ”— Hungary πŸ”— Military history/World War II πŸ”— Military history/European military history

AndrΓ‘s Toma (5 December 1925 – 30 March 2004) was a Hungarian soldier taken prisoner by the Red Army in 1945, then discovered living in a Russian psychiatric hospital in 2000. He was probably the last prisoner of war from the Second World War to be repatriated.

Because Toma never learned Russian and nobody at the hospital spoke Hungarian, he had apparently not had a single conversation in over 50 years, a situation of great interest for the fields of psychiatry and psycholinguistics.

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πŸ”— A Russian scientist who was struck by a particle accelerator beam

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Russia πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— Russia/science and education in Russia

Anatoli Petrovich Bugorski (Russian: Анатолий ΠŸΠ΅Ρ‚Ρ€ΠΎΠ²ΠΈΡ‡ Бугорский), born 25 June 1942, is a Russian scientist.

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πŸ”— Aaron Swartz

πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Internet πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Internet culture πŸ”— New York City πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— Biography/arts and entertainment πŸ”— United States/Massachusetts πŸ”— Chicago πŸ”— Open πŸ”— United States/Massachusetts - Boston πŸ”— Open Access

Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivist. He was involved in the development of the web feed format RSS, the Markdown publishing format, the organization Creative Commons, and the website framework web.py, and joined the social news site Reddit six months after its founding. He was given the title of co-founder of Reddit by Y Combinator owner Paul Graham after the formation of Not a Bug, Inc. (a merger of Swartz's project Infogami and Redbrick Solutions, a company run by Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman). Swartz's work also focused on civic awareness and activism. He helped launch the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in 2009 to learn more about effective online activism. In 2010, he became a research fellow at Harvard University's Safra Research Lab on Institutional Corruption, directed by Lawrence Lessig. He founded the online group Demand Progress, known for its campaign against the Stop Online Piracy Act.

In 2011, Swartz was arrested by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) police on state breaking-and-entering charges, after connecting a computer to the MIT network in an unmarked and unlocked closet, and setting it to download academic journal articles systematically from JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT. Federal prosecutors, led by Carmen Ortiz, later charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1Β million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release. Swartz declined a plea bargain under which he would have served six months in federal prison. Two days after the prosecution rejected a counter-offer by Swartz, he was found dead by suicide in his Brooklyn apartment. In 2013, Swartz was inducted posthumously into the Internet Hall of Fame.

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πŸ”— Emperor Norton

πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— California πŸ”— California/San Francisco Bay Area πŸ”— Micronations πŸ”— United States/American Old West

Joshua Abraham Norton (February 4, 1818 – January 8, 1880), known as Emperor Norton, was a citizen of San Francisco, California, who proclaimed himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States" in 1859. In 1863 he took the secondary title of "Protector of Mexico" after Napoleon III invaded that country. Norton was born in England but spent most of his early life in South Africa. He sailed west after the death of his mother in 1846 and his father in 1848, arriving in San Francisco possibly in November 1849.

Norton initially made a living as a businessman, but he lost his fortune investing in Peruvian rice to sell in China due to a Chinese rice shortage. He bought rice at 12 cents per pound from Peruvian ships, but more Peruvian ships arrived in port which caused the price to drop sharply to 4 cents. He then lost a lawsuit in which he tried to void his rice contract, and his public prominence faded. He re-emerged in September 1859, laying claim to the position of Emperor of the United States. Though Norton received many favors from the city, merchants also capitalized on his notoriety by selling souvenirs bearing his name. "San Francisco lived off the Emperor Norton," Norton's biographer William Drury wrote, "not Norton off San Francisco."

Norton had no formal political power; nevertheless, he was treated deferentially in San Francisco, and currency issued in his name was honored in the establishments that he frequented. Some considered him insane or eccentric, but citizens of San Francisco celebrated his imperial presence and his proclamations, such as his order that the United States Congress be dissolved by force and his numerous decrees calling for the construction of a bridge and tunnel crossing San Francisco Bay to connect San Francisco with Oakland.

On January 8, 1880, Norton collapsed at the corner of California and Dupont (now Grant) streets and died before he could be given medical treatment. Upwards of 30,000 people lined the streets of San Francisco to pay him homage at his funeral. Norton has been immortalized as the basis of characters in the literature of Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Christopher Moore, Morris and RenΓ© Goscinny, Selma LagerlΓΆf, and Neil Gaiman.

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πŸ”— Dennis Ritchie

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Computer science πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— New York (state) πŸ”— New York (state)/Hudson Valley πŸ”— Computing/Computer science πŸ”— Software πŸ”— Software/Computing πŸ”— C/C++ πŸ”— Japan πŸ”— New Jersey πŸ”— Linux

Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – c. October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist. He created the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system and B programming language. Ritchie and Thompson were awarded the Turing Award from the ACM in 1983, the Hamming Medal from the IEEE in 1990 and the National Medal of Technology from President Bill Clinton in 1999. Ritchie was the head of Lucent Technologies System Software Research Department when he retired in 2007. He was the "R" in K&R C, and commonly known by his username dmr.

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πŸ”— Grace Hopper

πŸ”— United States/U.S. Government πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/North American military history πŸ”— United States/Military history - U.S. military history πŸ”— Military history/Military science, technology, and theory πŸ”— New York City πŸ”— Women scientists πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— Women's History πŸ”— Military history/Military biography πŸ”— Biography/military biography πŸ”— Software πŸ”— Software/Computing πŸ”— Military history/Maritime warfare πŸ”— Pritzker Military Library

Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (nΓ©eΒ Murray December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard MarkΒ I computer, she was a pioneer of computer programming who invented one of the first linkers. She popularized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today.

Prior to joining the Navy, Hopper earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University and was a professor of mathematics at Vassar College. Hopper attempted to enlist in the Navy during World War II but was rejected because she was 34 years old. She instead joined the Navy Reserves. Hopper began her computing career in 1944 when she worked on the Harvard Mark I team led by Howard H. Aiken. In 1949, she joined the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation and was part of the team that developed the UNIVAC I computer. At Eckert–Mauchly she began developing the compiler. She believed that a programming language based on English was possible. Her compiler converted English terms into machine code understood by computers. By 1952, Hopper had finished her program linker (originally called a compiler), which was written for the A-0 System. During her wartime service, she co-authored three papers based on her work on the Harvard Mark 1.

In 1954, Eckert–Mauchly chose Hopper to lead their department for automatic programming, and she led the release of some of the first compiled languages like FLOW-MATIC. In 1959, she participated in the CODASYL consortium, which consulted Hopper to guide them in creating a machine-independent programming language. This led to the COBOL language, which was inspired by her idea of a language being based on English words. In 1966, she retired from the Naval Reserve, but in 1967 the Navy recalled her to active duty. She retired from the Navy in 1986 and found work as a consultant for the Digital Equipment Corporation, sharing her computing experiences.

The U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USSΒ Hopper was named for her, as was the Cray XE6 "Hopper" supercomputer at NERSC. During her lifetime, Hopper was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities across the world. A college at Yale University was renamed in her honor. In 1991, she received the National Medal of Technology. On November 22, 2016, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

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πŸ”— Y Combinator cofounder was convicted under CFAA in 1990

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Business πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— New York (state) πŸ”— Criminal Biography πŸ”— Computing/Computer Security πŸ”— New Jersey πŸ”— New York (state)/Cornell University πŸ”— Computing/Networking

Robert Tappan Morris (born November 8, 1965) is an American computer scientist and entrepreneur. He is best known for creating the Morris worm in 1988, considered the first computer worm on the Internet.

Morris was prosecuted for releasing the worm, and became the first person convicted under the then-new Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He went on to co-found the online store Viaweb, one of the first web-based applications, and later the funding firm Y Combinatorβ€”both with Paul Graham.

He later joined the faculty in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received tenure in 2006. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2019.


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πŸ”— Kim Ung-yong: The man with the highest IQ

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Korea πŸ”— Biography/science and academia

Kim Ung-Yong (Hangul: κΉ€μ›…μš©; born March 8, 1962) is a South Korean professor and former child prodigy, who once held the Guinness World Record for highest IQ, at a score of 230+.

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