“Glory is in the hands of labor,” said Leonardo da Vinci, and he was undoubtedly right, but in addition to hard work, sometimes at least a little talent is needed. Who knows which way the history of mankind would have gone if at least one of them had not been born - the geniuses who transformed the world. Here are just a few of the Great Ones living today.
1. Tim Berners-Lee - the "spider" who wove the World Wide Web
It is no coincidence that the British scientist and inventor Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee heads the World Wide Web Consortium - after all, it was he who invented the Internet, and also introduced many other developments in the field of information technology.
While working back in 1989 on the ENQUIRE internal document exchange project for CERS (European Laboratory for Nuclear Research), Timothy came to create a global hypertext project, approved and later called the World Wide Web - the World Wide Web. The basis was a system of hypertext documents interconnected by hyperlinks - all this made possible the revolutionary developments of Berners-Lee: HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol), URI identifier (and its variety - URL), HTML language. He created the world's first "httpd" web server and the world's first website, which was born on August 6, 1991 (it can now be found in the archives of the Internet). The brilliant Briton also wrote the first Internet browser for the NeXT computer.
In 1994, Ty Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium at the Computer Science Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he is its head at the present time: the Consortium develops Internet standards.
Now the creator of the Internet wants to go even further: he hopes to create a semantic web - an add-on to the World, which will raise the interaction of computers around the world to an absolutely incredible level. The point is that machines will have access to clearly structured information available to any client applications, and no matter what programming language they are written in: computers will be able to exchange information directly, without human intervention - perhaps this will lead to the creation of the World Artificial Intelligence.
2. George Soros, financial Robin Hood
This is one of the most controversial figures on the world economic scene: some call him a financial fraudster and speculator, while others attribute a brilliant financial instinct.
George Soros "made" "black Wednesday" - September 16, 1992, when there was a "collapse" of the British pound sterling in the foreign exchange market. It was rumored that he himself had arranged this collapse, buying up pounds for several years, and then exchanging them for the German mark at a speculative rate: the pound collapsed, and George, using reserve funds, earned $ 1–1 on its purchase in one day, according to various estimates, 5 billion. This legend is not entirely true: the "lucky" himself only admitted that having shares worth $7 billion, he was bluffing, bringing the amount of transactions to $10 billion - whoever does not take risks, you know ...
The infamous investor developed the “stock market reflexivity theory”, which says that securities are bought depending on the expectations of their future value, and expectations are a thin thing, it is subject to information attacks from the financial media and the actions of market destabilizing speculators.
The grandiose intricate financial activities of George Soros have one undeniably bright side - back in 1979, he created the Open Society Charitable Foundation in the United States. In 1988, one of the foundation's subdivisions even appeared in the USSR, but the Cultural Initiative Foundation was quickly shut down because of Soviet partners. In 1995, the "Open Society" itself came to Russia, thanks to the program "University Internet Centers" 33 Internet centers appeared in Russia. However, in 2003, Soros officially curtailed his charitable activities in Russia.
3. Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and Futurama cartoon universe
The world-famous cartoonist insists that his last name is pronounced Groening - a quirk of genius, there's nothing to be done: this is reflected in his appearance on The Simpsons, where the last name is pronounced that way.
Matthew from school showed an aptitude for journalism and animation, and after arriving in Los Angeles, he began to draw comics describing how he lives in a big city.
Impressions from Los Angeles, apparently, were not very good, since the comics were called "Life in Hell": Matt had to work as a record seller, journalist, courier, and even the director's chauffeur.
In 1978, the comic book was published by the avant-garde Wet Magazine, and in 1980 by the Los Angeles Reader. Later, Groening was invited to write a rock and roll column in it, but he wrote in it mainly about what he saw during the day, recalled his childhood, shared his thoughts about life - in general, he was fired.
In 1985, he was approached by producer James Brooks to draw short cartoon sketches for The Tracey Ullman Show, but Groening came up with something else: the Simpson family living at 742 Evergreen Alley, Springfield.
4. Nelson Mandela, who raised South Africa from its knees
Mandela's life is a vivid example of a non-violent, but no less stubborn and difficult struggle: already in his freshman year at the University of Fort Hare (at that time the only higher educational institution in South Africa where blacks could study), he took part in the boycott of Fort Hare government policy and refused to take a seat on the Student Representative Council, after which he left the university. While studying law at the University of the Witwatersrand, Mandela met future anti-apartheid comrades-in-arms Harry Schwartz and Joe Slovo (the latter would later take a seat in Mandela's government).
In the 1940s, Nelson became interested in radical liberal ideas, became interested in politics and participated in protest demonstrations, and in 1948 he was elected secretary of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League - this was the beginning of his ascent up the political career ladder.
The political path of Nelson Mandela was long and thorny: years of struggle (including sabotage and preparation of a real subversive war against the South African government) against the oppression of the black population, a trial, and finally - 27 years in prison. Having gained freedom in 1990, Mandela again became the leader of the ANC, which by that time was already a legal political party, and in 1993 received the Nobel Peace Prize. He became the first black president of South Africa by election in 1994, and remained in office until 1999.
5. Frederick Senger, twice Nobel chemist
In his youth, Sanger intended to follow in the footsteps of his father (he worked as a doctor), but later became interested in biochemistry and did not fail. Many years later, he wrote: "It seemed to me that this was the way to really understand living matter and to develop a more scientific basis for solving many of the problems facing medicine."
The only two-time Nobel Prize winner in chemistry in the world, Sanger has been studying the structure of amino acids and the properties of insulin since the 1940s, in 1955 he first presented a detailed description of the insulin molecule, thus initiating studies of the molecular composition of proteins - this was his first Nobel ", who found a hero in 1958. Sanger's research made possible the production of artificial insulin and other hormones.
Long years of work on deciphering DNA allowed the chemist in 1973 to create an analytical method for establishing sequences of nucleotide chains - this development in 1980 again made him a Nobel laureate along with Paul Berg and Walter Gilbert.
Now Sanger has retired and is enjoying a quiet family life in Cambridge with his wife Margaret Joan Howe (married in 1940), they have three children.
6. Dario Fo, Nobel Laureate Theater
You can tell everything about this person with his quotes, but it’s better to leave you the opportunity to discover his work for yourself if you are unfamiliar with him. In just a few words: this is a fountain of witty political and religious satire, hypocrisy, buffoonery and farce - a fountain that, contrary to the well-known expression of Kozma Prutkov, one does not want to shut up at all.
Dario Fo is an Italian director, playwright, and actor whose indefatigable activity and undoubted genius have made him the greatest figure in theatrical Europe over the past half century. The main motive of his work has always been to ridicule power - whether political, ecclesiastical, it does not matter.
Dario started writing sketches, monologues, and short stories as a student. Since the 1950s, Fo has been acting in films, writing scripts and plays, and touring with his own theater group, actively manifesting his political left.
In 1997, Dario Fo received the Nobel Prize in Literature, his diploma says: “for inheriting medieval jesters, boldly criticizing the authorities and defending the dignity of the oppressed.” He himself joked about this: “I also write novels, but I don’t show them to anyone.”
“The artist is under the gun of the authorities and the power is under the gun of the artist”, “Theater, literature, art that do not speak for their time are of no value” - all this is Dario Fo.
7. Stephen Hawking, professor of mathematics without a mathematical background
Hawking is known for his studies of the structure of black holes and work on quantum gravity: in 1975, he created the theory of "evaporation" of black holes - this phenomenon was called "Hawking radiation". The area of interest of the famous theoretical physicist is the whole Universe, he published several popular science books on its birth and development, the interaction of space and time, superstring theory, and many other entertaining problems of modern physics and cosmology.
In his first year of teaching mathematics at Oxford, the untrained Hawking read the textbook only two weeks ahead of his students.
In 2003, in an interview, he gave a somewhat pessimistic forecast for the development of mankind: according to him, we will have to move to other planets, because viruses will dominate on Earth.
Back in the 1960s, Stephen began to show signs of a central nervous system disease, which later led him to almost complete paralysis of the limbs - since then he has been moving in a special chair, which he controls through sensors on some muscles that have retained mobility. In communicating with people, he is helped by a computer and a speech synthesizer, which friends gave him in 1985.
A serious illness did not break the character of the great scientist - he lives an interesting, active and, as they say, full life.
8. Philip Glass, the big minimalist
An American composer whose work is rooted in the Indian musical tradition, it can be said that Philip absorbed music along with his mother's milk: his father owned a music store. The trip of a 17-year-old boy to Paris became fateful - from there his ascent to the heights of the musical Olympus begins.
Glass traveled to India for several years, where he met the 14-year-old Dalai Lama, and has since been a vocal supporter of Tibetan autonomy. Glass's genius was influenced by Bach, Mozart, the French avant-garde and the legendary Indian musician Ravi Shankar.
The main thing in the composer's work is rhythm: his melodies are simple but expressive, he is stubbornly called a minimalist, but he himself denies minimalism.
In 1984, Glass became world famous when he collaborated with the director Godfrey Reggio in creating documentaries: in these films, music is not a background or an auxiliary visual means, it is the main character. Prior to this, Philip's most famous work was the opera Einstein on the Beach.
In the same 1984, Glass wrote music for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, his other famous works are the music for the films "Candyman", "The Truman Show" and "The Illusionist".
When Glass was asked the question: "What kind of music should each person hear?", He answered: "Music of one's own heart."
9. Grigory Perelman, a genius in isolation
Back in the 1990s, our brilliant compatriot stirred up the world scientific community with his sensational works in geometry, mathematics and physics, but two proofs of the Poincaré hypothesis, one of the so-called "Mysteries of the Millennium", and the rejection of well-deserved awards and monetary rewards.
Grigory Yakovlevich is a surprisingly modest and unpretentious person in everyday life: having arrived in the United States in the early 1990s, he surprised his American colleagues with an almost ascetic lifestyle and a skeptical attitude towards the scientific community. He is perfectly characterized by the statement “Outsiders are not those who violate the ethical standards in science. People like me are the ones who end up in isolation.”
One day, the mathematician was asked to provide C.V. (summary) and recommendations, to which Perelman sharply replied: “If they know my work, they do not need my C.V. If they need my C.V. “They don’t know my work.”
In 2005, Grigory Perelman resigned from the St. Petersburg branch of the Mathematical Institute, practically stopped contacts with colleagues and lives with his mother, leading a rather secluded life.
10. Andrew Wiles, dreamy mathematician
This professor of mathematics at Princeton University proved Fermat's Last Theorem, over which more than one generation of scientists struggled for hundreds of years.
Even as a child, Andrew learned about the existence of this mathematical theorem and immediately began to look for a solution, picking up a school textbook. He found it 30 years later after another scientist, Ken Ribet, proved the connection between the theorem of Japanese mathematicians Taniyama and Shimura and Fermat's Last Theorem. Unlike more skeptical colleagues, Wiles immediately understood - this is it, and after seven years he put an end to the proof.
The process of this proof turned out to be very dramatic: having completed the work in 1993, Wiles, literally during a public speech with a sensation that shook the scientific world, discovers a gap in the solution - the basis of his proof crumbles before our eyes. It takes two months to search for an error line by line (the solution of the equation took 130 printed pages), for almost a year and a half, hard work is being done to eliminate the gap - nothing comes of it, the whole scientific world is secretly waiting for the result, but at the same time gloating. And on September 19, 1994, Wiles had an insight - the proof was completed.
The selection is based on The Daily Telegraph's "List of 100 Living Geniuses".
Wilhelm Schickard
(1592 - 1635)
Computer history begins in 1623 when Wilhelm Schickard built mankind's first automatic calculator.The Schickard gaming machine can perform basic arithmetic operations on integer inputs. His letters to Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, explain the application of his "calculation of hours" to the calculation of astronomical tables.
The non-programmable Schickard machine was based on the traditional decimal number system. Leibniz subsequently discovered a more convenient binary system (1679), an important element of the world's first working program - a controlled computer, due to Zuse (1941).
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
(1646-1716)
Leibniz, sometimes called the last universal genius, invented at least two things that are important to the modern world: calculus and bit-based binary arithmetic.
Modern physics, mathematics, engineering, would be unthinkable without the former: a fundamental method of working with infinitesimal numbers. Leibniz was the first to publish it. He developed it around 1673. In 1679 he perfected the notation for integration and differentiation that is still in use today.
Binary arithmetic based on the dual system he invented around 1679, and published in 1701. This became the basis of almost all modern computers.
Charles Babbage
British mathematician and inventor, author of works on the theory of functions, mechanization of counting in economics; foreign corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1832). In 1833developed a project of a universal digital computer- A prototype of a computer. Babbage provided for the possibility of entering instructions into the machine using punched cards. However, this machine was not finished either, since the low level of technology of that time became the main obstacle to its creation. Charles Babbage is often called the "father of the computer" for his invention of the Analytical Engine, although its prototype was created many years after his death.Lovelace Augusta Ada
A.Lovelace developed the first programs for Babbage's Analytical Engine, thereby laying the theoretical foundations of programming. She first introduced the concept of a cycle of operation. In one of the notes, she expressed the main idea that the analytical engine can solve such problems, which, due to the difficulty of calculations, are almost impossible to solve manually. So for the first time the machine was considered not only as a mechanism that replaces a person, but also as a device capable of performing work that exceeds the capabilities of a person. Although Babbage's Analytical Engine was not built and Lovelace's programs were never debugged and did not work, however, a number of general provisions expressed by her retained their fundamental importance for modern programming. Today, A. Lovelace is rightfully called the first programmer in the world.
(1912-1954) Alan Mathison Turing reformulates Kurt Goedel's unprovability results in terms of Turing Machines (TMCs). Closely related to earlier work was done by Turing's adviser to Alonso Church. TMs subsequently became the most widely used abstract computing models. Universal TMs can emulate any other TM, or any other known computer.
During World War II, Turing helped (with Welchman) decipher the Nazi code. Some sources say that this work was decisive for the victory over the Third Reich.
Later, Turing proposed his famous test of whether a computer is sentient (more on The History of Artificial Intelligence). Computer science's most sought-after award bears his name: the Turing Award.
Kurt Gödel
(1906-1978)
In 1931, just a few years after Julius Lilienfeld patented the transistor, Kurt Gödel (or "Goedel", not "Godel") laidfundamentals of theoretical computer sciencewith his work on universal formal languages and limits on proof and computation. It is constructed of formal systems allowing self-referential statements that speak about themselves, specifically about whether they can be derived from an enumerable given set of axioms using a computational theorem proving procedure. Gödel went on to construct statements that claim their own unprovability to demonstrate that conventional mathematics is either flawed in a certain algorithmic sense or contains unprovable but true statements.
Gödel's incompleteness result is widely regarded as the most remarkable achievement of 20th-century mathematics, although some mathematicians say it is logic rather than mathematics, and others call it the fundamental result of theoretical computer science (to reformulate Church & Post & Turing around 1936), a discipline that not yet officially in existence even then, but was actually created through Gödel's work. He had a huge impact not only on computer science, but also on philosophy and other fields.
John von Neumann(12/28/1903, Budapest, - 2/8/1957, Washington)
American mathematician, member of the US National Academy of Sciences (1937). In 1926 he graduated from the University of Budapest. Since 1927 he taught at the University of Berlin, in 1930-33 - at Princeton University (USA), since 1933 professor at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study. Since 1940 he has been a consultant to various army and naval institutions (N. took part, in particular, in the work on the creation of the first atomic bomb). Since 1954 he has been a member of the Atomic Energy Commission.
The main scientific works are devoted to functional analysis and its applications to the problems of classical and quantum mechanics. N. also belongs to research on mathematical logic and on the theory of topological groups. In the last years of his life, he was mainly engaged in the development of questions related to game theory, automata theory; made a great contribution to the creation of the first computers and the development of methods for their application. He is best known as the person who is associated with the architecture of most modern computers (the so-called von Neumann architecture)
(June 22, 1910, Berlin - December 18, 1995, Hünfeld)
German engineer, computer pioneer. Best known as creator of the first truly working programmable computer(1941) and first high-level programming language (1945).
Engaged in the creation of a programmable calculating machine.
1935-1938 : Konrad Zuse builds the Z1, the world's first software-controlled computer. Despite a number of problems in mechanical engineering, it had all the main components of modern machine tools, using the binary system and today the standard separation of storage and control. Zuse's 1936 patent application (Z23139/GMD Nr. 005/021) also testifies to the von Neumann architecture (re-invented in 1945) with programs and data being modified during storage.
1941 A: Zuse completes Z3, the world's first fully functional programmable from a computer.
1945 : Zuse describes Plankalkuel, the world's first high-level programming language that incorporates many of the standard features of modern programming languages. FORTRAN came almost ten years later. Zuse also used Plankalkuel to design the world's first chess program.
1946 : Zuse founds the world's first computer startup company: Zuse-Ingenieurbüro Hopferau. Venture capital raised through ETH Zürich and IBM-option on Zuse patents.
In addition to general purpose computers, Zuse built several specialized computers. So, calculators S1 and S2 were used to determine the exact dimensions of parts in aviation technology. Machine S2, in addition to the calculator, also included measuring devices for measuring aircraft. The L1 computer, which remained in the form of an experimental model, was intended for Zuse to solve logical problems.
1967 : Zuse KG delivered 251 computers, worth about DM 100 million.
Kemeny John (Janos)
Mathematician, professor at Dartmouth College (USA). Together with Thomas Kurz developed the BASIC programming language and a network system for using multiple computers at the same time ("time sharing"). Together with his parents, he emigrated to the United States from Hungary in 1940. He graduated from Princeton University, where he studied mathematics and philosophy. In 1949 he defended his thesis, and in 1953 he was invited to Dartmouth. As dean of the Mathematics Department at Dartmouth College from 1955 to 1967, and even as president of the college (1970-1981), he did not leave teaching. He was one of the pioneers of teaching the basics of programming: he believed that this subject should be available to all students, regardless of their specialization.
(May 11, 1930 - August 6, 2002)
An outstanding specialist in the field of theoretical programming, author of a number of books, including the classic monograph "Discipline of Programming". All his scientific activity was devoted to the development of methods for creating "correct" programs, the correctness of which can be proved by formal methods. Being one of the authors structured programming concepts, Dijkstra preached against using the GOTO instruction. In 1972, his scientific achievements were awarded the Turing Prize. At the presentation of the award, one of the speakers described Dijkstra's activities as follows: "This is a model of a scientist who programs without touching a computer, and does everything possible so that his students do the same and represent computer science as a branch of mathematics."
Ershov Andrey Petrovich
(April 19, 1931 - December 8, 1988)
American inventor Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute introduced world's first computer mouse in 1968 on December 9th.
Douglas Engelbart's invention was a wooden cube on wheels with a single button. The computer mouse owes its name to the wire - it reminded the inventor of the tail of a real mouse.
Later, Xerox became interested in Engelbart's idea. Its researchers changed the design of the mouse, and it became similar to the modern one. In the early 1970s, Xerox first introduced the mouse as part of a personal computer. It had three buttons, a ball and rollers instead of discs, and cost $400!
Today there are two types of computer mice: mechanical and optical. The latter are devoid of mechanical elements, and optical sensors are used to track the movement of the manipulator relative to the surface. Wireless mice are the latest in technology.
Niklaus Wirth
(February 15, 1934) Swiss engineer and researcher in the programming world. Author and one of the developers programming language Pascal. N. Wirth was one of the first who put into practice the principle of step-by-step refinement as a key to the systematic creation of programs. In addition to Pascal, he created other algorithmic languages (including Modula-2 and Oberon). They are not well known to "production" programmers, but are widely used for theoretical research in the field of programming. Wirth is one of the world's most respected computer scientists, his book Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs is considered one of the classic textbooks on structured programming.
Bill Gates
(October 28, 1955)American entrepreneur and developer in the field of electronic computing technology, founder of the world's leading software company Microsoft.
In 1980, Microsoft developed the MS-DOS operating system, which by the mid-1980s became the main operating system in the American microcomputer market. Gates then moved on to developing application programs such as Excel spreadsheets and Word, and by the late 1980s, Microsoft had become a leader in this area as well.
In 1986, by issuing shares of the company for free sale, Gates at the age of 31 became a billionaire. In 1990, the company introduced the Windows 3.0 shell, which replaced verbal commands with mouse-selectable icons, making the computer much easier to use. By the end of the 1990s, about 90% of all personal computers in the world were equipped with Microsoft software. In 1997, Gates topped the list of the richest people in the world.
Paul Allen
American entrepreneur, co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, which he founded in 1975 with his school friend Bill Gates.
In 1975, Allen and Gates used the name "Micro-Soft" for the first time. In the source code of the BASIC language interpreter, created by them by order of MITS.
In a joint business, Paul Allen was engaged in technical ideas and promising developments, negotiations, contracts and other business communication turned out to be closer to Gates. And yet, the friends solved the main issues together - sometimes, as Gates later admitted, the disputes continued for 6-8 hours in a row. For the joint brainchild of Allen and Gates, the finest hour came in 1980. It was then that IBM turned to the not-too-large and not yet very well-known company Microsoft with a proposal to adapt several programming languages for use on the IBM PC, which was supposed to appear on the market in 1981. During the negotiations, it turned out that IBM representatives would not mind finding a contractor who would contract to develop an operating system for a new computer. Partners took up this work. However, Allen and Gates did not develop a new operating system. They knew that Tim Paterson, who worked at Seattle Compute Products, had already developed Q-DOS (Quick Disk Operating System) for 16-bit Intel processors by this time. The trick was that during the negotiations to acquire Q-DOS, in no case could it be made clear to the sellers that Allen and Gates already had a buyer for this system. Gates, as the main negotiator, had to work hard on this, but the combination worked out brilliantly. True, the system had to be reworked, because it had to work on 8-bit processors. In an effort to meet the deadline, they worked almost round the clock and, according to Allen himself, there was a day when they, together with Bill, sat at the computer for 36 hours in a row without stopping. For PC-DOS, the acquisition of which cost several tens of thousands of dollars, IBM immediately paid 6 thousand dollars, while, under the terms of the agreement signed by the parties, IBM undertook to sell computers only with PC-DOS, deducting interest from Microsoft from each piece of equipment sold.
(October 4, 1965)
Until 1991, he worked at a multidisciplinary research institute of the USSR Ministry of Defense. He began studying the phenomenon of computer viruses in October 1989, when the "Cascade" virus was discovered on his computer. From 1991 to 1997 he worked at the STC "KAMI", where, together with a group of like-minded people, he developed anti-virus project "AVP" (now - "Kaspersky Anti-Virus"). In 1997 Evgeny Kaspersky became one of the founders "Kaspersky Lab".
Today, Evgeny Kaspersky is one of the world's leading experts in the field of virus protection. He is the author of a large number of articles and reviews on the problem of computer virology, regularly speaks at specialized seminars and conferences in Russia and abroad. Evgeny Valentinovich Kaspersky is a member of the Computer Virus Research Organization (CARO), which brings together experts in this field.
Among the most significant and interesting achievements of Evgeniy Valentinovich and his "Laboratory" in 2001 are the opening of the annual Virus Bulletin conference - the central event in the anti-virus industry, as well as the successful opposition to all global virus epidemics that occurred in 2001.
Evgeny Roshal
(March 10, 1972, Chelyabinsk)
Evgeny Roshal graduated from the Instrument-Making Department of the Chelyabinsk Polytechnic Institute with a degree in Computers, Complexes, Systems and Networks.
In the fall of 1993 he released the first public version of the RAR 1.3 archiver, in the fall of 1996 - FAR Manager. Later, with the growing popularity of Microsoft Windows, the WinRAR archiver for Windows was released. The name RAR stands for Roshal ARchiver.
Sergey Brin
Sergey Mikhailovich Brin was born in Moscow into a Jewish family of mathematicians who moved to the United States permanently in 1979 when he was 6 years old.
In 1993 he entered Stanford University in California, where he received a master's degree and began working on his dissertation. Already during his studies, he became interested in Internet technologies and search engines, became the author of several studies on extracting information from large arrays of textual and scientific data, and wrote a program for processing scientific texts.
In 1995, at Stanford University, Sergey Brin met another mathematics graduate student, Larry Page, with whom they founded Google in 1998. Initially, they argued vehemently when discussing any scientific topic, but then became friends and teamed up to create a search engine for their campus. Together they wrote the scientific work "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine", which is considered to contain the prototype of their future super-successful idea.
Brin and Page proved the viability of their idea on the university search engine google.stanford.edu, developing its mechanism in accordance with new principles. On September 14, 1997, the google.com domain was registered. Attempts to develop the idea and turn it into a business followed. Over time, the project left the walls of the university and managed to collect investments for further development.
The joint business grew, made a profit, and even demonstrated enviable stability at the time of the dot-com collapse, when hundreds of other companies went bankrupt. In 2004, the names of the founders were named by Forbes magazine in the list of billionaires.
Andrew Tanenbaum
(March 16, 1944)
Professor at the Free University of Amsterdam, where he leads a group of computer system developers; He received his doctorate in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. Known as the author of Minix (a free Unix-like operating system for student labs), computer science books, and the RFID virus. He is also the main developer of the Amsterdam Compiler Kit. He himself considers his teaching activity the most important. Andrew Tanenbaum was born in New York and raised in White Plains, New York. He received his bachelor's degree in physics from MIT in 1965 and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1971.
Later he moved with his family to the Netherlands, while retaining US citizenship. Andrew Tanenbaum teaches courses in organizing computers and operating systems and also holds a Ph. D. In 2009 received a grant of 2.5 million euros from the European Research Council for the development of MINIX.
Linus Torvalds
(December 28, 1969)
Creator of the world famous operating system. In early 1991, he began to write his own platform aimed at the average consumer, which could be distributed for free via the Internet. The new system was named Linux, derived from a combination of the name of its creator with the name UNIX. For ten years, Linux has become a real competitor to products manufactured by Microsoft, capable of pushing the company's monopoly in the system and server software market.
Thousands of "interested programmers", hackers, computer network specialists happily picked up Linus's idea and began to finish, finish, debug what Torvalds offered them. In almost ten years, Linux has gone from a toy of several hundred fans and enthusiasts, executing a couple of dozen commands in a primitive console, to a professional multi-user and multi-tasking 32-bit operating system with a windowed graphical interface, many times superior to Microsoft Windows in terms of its range of capabilities, stability and power. 95, 98 and NT and capable of running on virtually any modern IBM-compatible computer.
Today, Linux is a powerful UNIX-like platform that includes almost all the features and a whole range of its own features that are not found anywhere else. Due to its high performance and reliability, it has become one of the most popular platforms for organizing http servers.
Bjorn Stroustrup Bjarne Stroustrup
(June 11, 1950 (according to other sources, December 30), Aarhus, Denmark)
Author of the C++ programming language.
Graduated from the University of Aarhus (Denmark, 1975) in mathematics and computer science, defended his dissertation (Ph. D.) in computer science at Cambridge (1979).
Until 2002, he headed the department of research in the field of large-scale programming at AT&T (Computer Science Research Center of Bell Telephone Laboratories). Now a professor at the University of Texas, A&M.
Bjorn was born and raised in Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark. He entered the state university in the department of computer science. After graduating, he received a master's degree.
Bjorn Stroustrup received his PhD while working on distributed system design at the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory (England).
If you do not go beyond the "object-oriented" methods,to stay within "good programmingand design”, then in the end something is necessarily obtained thatis basically meaningless.Stroustrup Bjorn
Martin Fowler
Born in England, lived in London before moving to America in 1994. Currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
One of the books "Refactoring. Improving Existing Code": Martin Fowler and co-authors shed light on the refactoring process, describing the principles and best practices for its implementation, as well as indicating where and when to start in-depth study of the code in order to improve it.
At the heart of the book is a detailed list of over 70 refactoring methods, each of which describes the motivation and technique for field-proven code transformation with Java examples.
The methods discussed in the book allow you to gradually modify the code, making small changes each time, thereby reducing the risk associated with the development of the project.
Any fool can write a program they understandcompiler. Good programmers write programsthat other programmers can understand.
Fowler Martin
Sid Meyer
(February 24, 1954, Detroit) 
American developer computer games. Graduate of Michigan State University. In 2002, he was inducted into the Computer Museum of America's Hall of Fame.
In 1991, MicroProse began selling a playable encyclopedia of historically recognizable Civilization images. In 1993, the large vertically integrated company Spectrum HoloByte, Inc. makes efforts to acquire MicroProse.
After the completion of legal procedures by 1994, Meyer and the new CEO of the company, Louis Gilman (Gilman Louie), there were some differences in questions regarding where, how and why to develop a joint gaming business.
"The game is a sequenceinteresting choices"
Donald Ervin Knuth
(January 10, 1938) 
American scientist, honorary professor at Stanford University and several other universities in different countries, foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, teacher and programming ideologist, author of 19 monographs (including a number of classic books on programming) and more than 160 articles, developer of several well-known software technologies.
The author of a world-famous series of books devoted to the basic algorithms and methods of computational mathematics, as well as the creator of desktop publishing systems TEX and METAFONT, designed for typesetting and typesetting books on technical topics (primarily physics and mathematics).
The work of Andrei Petrovich Ershov, later his friend, had a greater influence on the young Donald Knuth.
Professor Knuth has received numerous awards and prizes in the field of programming and computational mathematics, including the Turing Prize (1974), the US National Medal of Science (1979) and the AMS Steele Prize for a series of popular science articles, the Harvey Prize (1995), the Kyoto Prize ( 1996) for achievements in advanced technology, Grace Murray Hopper Award (1971).
At the end of February 2009, Knuth was the 20th most cited author in the CiteSeer project.
The best way to get to the bottom of something isJapanese free software developer, creator of a programming language ruby.
In inte In a review of Japan Inc., he said that he taught himself how to program before he graduated from high school.Graduated from the University of Tsukuba, where he did research on programming languages and compilers.
Since 2006, he has been the head of research and development at Network Applied Communication Laboratory, a Japanese free software system integrator.
Born in 1965 in Osaka Prefecture, he moved to Yonago City, Tottori Prefecture at the age of four, so he is often presented as a native of Yonago. He currently resides in Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture.
Yukihiro is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is involved in missionary work. He is married and has four children.I want the computer to be my servantnot a master, so I must be able toquickly and effectively explain to him what to do.
Matsumoto YukihiroSteve Jobs
(February 24, 1955, San Francisco, California - October 5, 2011, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, California)
An American entrepreneur who is widely recognized as a pioneer of the IT era. One of the founders, chairman of the board of directors and Apple CEO . One of the founders and CEO of the Pixar film studio.
In the late 1970s, Steve and his friend Steve Wozniak developed one of the first personal computers with great commercial potential. A computer Apple II became the first mass-produced Apple product, created at the initiative of Steve Jobs. Jobs later saw the commercial potential of a mouse-driven GUI, which led to the Apple Lisa computers and, a year later, Macintosh (Mac).
After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT - a company that developed a computer platform for universities and businesses. In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, turning it into Pixar. He remained Pixar's CEO and majority shareholder until the studio was acquired by The Walt Disney Company in 2006, making Jobs the largest private shareholder and member of Disney's board of directors.
Difficulties developing a new operating system for the Mac led to Apple's purchase of NeXT in 1996 to use NeXTSTEP as the basis for Mac OS X. As part of the deal, Jobs was given a position as an advisor to Apple. The deal was orchestrated by Jobs. By 1997, Jobs had regained control of Apple, heading the corporation. Under his leadership, the company was saved from bankruptcy and a year later began to make a profit. For the next decade, Jobs led the developmentiMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone and iPad, as well as the developmentApple Store, iTunes Store, App Store and iBookstore. The success of these products and services, which provided several years of stable financial profit, allowed Apple to become the most valuable public company in the world in 2011. Many commentators call Apple's revival one of the greatest accomplishments in business history. At the same time, Jobs was criticized for his authoritarian management style, aggressive actions towards competitors, the desire for total control over products even after they were sold to the buyer.Jobs has received public recognition and a number of awards for his impact on the technology and music industries. He is often called a "visionary" and even "the father of the digital revolution". Jobs was a brilliant speaker and took innovative product presentations to the next level, turning them into exciting shows. His instantly recognizable figure in a black turtleneck, faded jeans and sneakers is surrounded by a cult following.
What a woman is not capable of to win the love of her man! From the beloved’s mother to beg for a signature recipe for scrambled eggs, from mutual friends - to find out which clubs the object of passion prefers. If there are no mutual acquaintances, find out for yourself where and what time He appoints a business meeting, and follow where he goes at lunchtime. Then, by chance, appear there in full dress and sincerely be surprised at the pleasant and absolutely random coincidence of tastes.
In Russia, young girls performed complex and time-consuming procedures: they threw a shoe over the gate, combed the manes of horses, ran away from black cats, melted wax. And all this with one single goal: not to spoil your family life and learn something about the character and appearance of the groom. Today there is no need to resort to the services of magicians, wizards and healers - there is an ultra-modern and universal way to understand what is hidden behind the sleek appearance, taut figure and ironic smile of the man you like. Just take a look at his computer.
ACCURATE.
There are special napkins on the table to wipe the keyboard. His computer is in amazing order. Documents are numbered and arranged in folders, folders are also subject to strict classification. Naming the files, he does not show any imagination or sense of humor: he simply writes the date of creation. But in two seconds it finds the necessary report for the last century and knows the dollar exchange rate on the first Monday of the month. Start page Accuratist - Rambler. Firstly, it has all the necessary information, and secondly, Rambler is solid. Fifteen minutes before the end of the working day, he deletes all unnecessary files and letters, the next day he carefully looks through them again and finally empties the trash.
A neat person does not tolerate optionality, sloppiness, lack of punctuality. All the efforts of the Neat Man are focused on work, most likely, he is pathologically ambitious. Moreover, he is sure that a woman is a successful addition to a successful career. If you liked such an ambitious person, remember that the main thing for him is what others think of you. Try to live up to his expectations - let colleagues and acquaintances admire your sense of style, efficiency, knowledge of English, a new hairstyle - whatever. Everything should be at the highest level, and one fine day, after the next promotion, he will decide that now he is worthy of such a smart and beautiful girl like you.
Be careful - ambitious people do not tolerate competitors, and after the honeymoon trip, your prince will take it, and even offer you to quit.
Perhaps the Neat Man isn't quite as boring as he seems. In some folder, well hidden and password protected, he keeps a photo of his ex-lover. When, under the pretext of a catastrophic lack of time and emergency work, he is late at the workplace, who will confirm that he really double-checks the statements? Suddenly he spends this time in a chat, for a cheerful and frivolous conversation? Be carefull!
INTELLECTUAL.
The computer is a complete mess. Unfinished novels, reviews of other people's poems. A good erotic story from the life of first-year students. Some files won't open. The antivirus program has not been updated for six months. It is not possible to transfer a file from a floppy disk to a hard disk. Ninety percent of emails come from women. The Intellectual does not respond to many out of principle - he does not want to waste precious time on girls. But he actively visits forums, leaves long posts, and gets involved in pointless disputes in chat. The start page is the official site of B. Akunin.
Computer geniuses - who is who?
How to get his attention? Very simple. Talk about the high, push Marinina and Dontsova to the far shelf, praise cult cinema, listen to incomprehensible music with a smart look. When the heart of the Intellectual is at your complete disposal, try not to pay attention to the fact that the computer constantly freezes, and not to swear when your valuable documents are destroyed by themselves. In addition, do not be jealous of the Intellectual for those with whom he communicates via ICQ. These are not secret lovers, these are brothers in mind - other Intellectuals.
GOLDEN BOY.
He has the most sophisticated and expensive computer. All programs are licensed. The speakers cost a little more than the fur coat that you looked at in a nearby, by no means cheap store. His mouse is transparent and without a tail, oh, that is, without a wire. Start page - www.afisha.ru. The Favorites folders contain links to the electronic pages of the American Playboy magazine and our Men's Health. Celebrity emails come across in the address book of the mail program. How to attract this? make-up, you have a chance.
In order not to miss him, you must: be aware of all fashion events, choose sandals to match the color of the upholstery in his car, unmistakably distinguish Versace from Gucci. In addition, you will have to pretend that you have never traveled by subway in your life and get an extravagant tattoo in a more unusual place than the one that his ex-girlfriend had. It is better to make a temporary tattoo: God forbid, quarrel, and the memory of the golden boy will remain for life.
The won Golden Boy is also not a gift. He is an energy vampire. He prefers to feed on other people's emotions, constantly provokes others and does not let anyone get too close. Do not be upset if he suddenly starts hanging out in chats and chatting with strangers. It's just that the Golden Boys believe that making a woman jealous is the best way to warm up her feelings.
HOOLIGAN.
People like Hooligan never grow up - he is a real Peter Pan. Modern technologies allow him absolutely everything: to deceive, to joke, to entice, to seduce, to promise. In real life, he can be anyone, such as a successful businessman, but online he pretends to be at least five different people, some of them women. It’s quite difficult to guess that the Hooligan is in front of you, because his computer is protected by several passwords. If suddenly some lady in the forum on the women's portal leaves extremely provocative messages, for example, "my husband is perfect" or "all women are bitches", most likely, modern Peter Pan is sitting on the other side of the monitor. If such a lady is suddenly at odds with punctuation marks and periodically begins to give out suspiciously familiar phrases, it is likely that she is your acquaintance Hooligan.
Masyanya's cheerful face, downloaded from www.mult.ru, serves as wallpaper for the Hooligan's desktop. Instead of the usual arrow, a kitten runs across the surface of the monitor. If the Hooligan allowed you access to his files, this is a sign of the greatest trust on his part. And it's worth it: in love, the Hooligan is a real knight. He is ready to run at night for pistachio ice cream at your first request. Able to admire your beauty and talents, so much so that not only his friends, but also your colleagues at work will learn about them. For this, he can be forgiven a lot - including the fact that he will never become a truly adult.
Ekaterina MOISEEVA
The biography of this young man confirms several well-established stereotypes:
Nothing has changed since the 50s: two worlds - two Shapiros.
Google immediately entered the top ten cybernetic technologies, the Times magazine awarded Google a prize for technical excellence, etc.Google President Sergey Brin and CEO Larry Page also created an unusually democratic company: 20% of the time a new employee can spend on developing his projects, which should stimulate his creativity.
Personal credo of Sergey Brin: “Everyone wants to succeed, but I want to be thought of as both an innovator and a moral, trustworthy person who ultimately changed the world.”
And one more detail: Sergey Brin lives, as his father said, he lives in a three-room apartment. A man with $18.2 billion of personal net worth. And compare this with the cattle from Rublyovka, who became wealthy, thanks to a huge contribution to the plundering of the national wealth of their country.
Until recently, Sergei was the most enviable groom - handsome, smart, and fabulously rich. To the chagrin of many mothers who passionately wanted to make him their son-in-law, Sergey even once said that marriage was not included in his immediate plans. 
However, his bachelor life was over. In May 2007, Anna Voyzhetsky became Sergey's wife. She graduated from Yale University in 1996 with a degree in biology. Anna founded her own company. In December 2008, the newlyweds had a son, Benji.
The personal life of Sergey Brin is strikingly different from the stereotypes of the behavior of people with such fantastic capital. The president of Google during his lunch break in the parking lot plays roller hockey with other employees, is fond of gymnastics, visits Russian restaurants in San Francisco, and is a frequenter of the Russian cafe Katya's.
And one more thing - and perhaps no less indicative than the personal success of the founder of Google - over the course of 20 years, the company intends to spend $ 20 billion on charity!
According to Sergey Brin, he has only one unfulfilled dream left - to create a search engine that would know what you are looking for and display exactly the results you need.
Gates says that before Allen started teaching him about computers and microchips, he wanted to be a scientist or a lawyer.
“I couldn’t decide what exactly. My father is a lawyer, but the work of scientists seems to be more interesting.”
Even so, Gates didn't see a career move in the computer world. “It was unusual. I didn't consider myself a perpetual hacker."
But only games and walks in the world of computers are not enough. From an early age, Gates and Allen dreamed of their own software business.
“Actually, we were terribly upset, because when we called companies, for example, IBM or Digital, and said: “Do you want our compiler or editor?” - they always answered: “No, we do this ourselves, and in general, you guys are just schoolchildren. Why are you calling us to no avail?”
They got their chance to get into serious programming when engineers at the Northwestern Unified Power System got into trouble and, looking for a solution, discovered Cube's Problem Statement. The TRV Corporation was writing programs to analyze the demand for electricity in the Columbia Basin and control the amount of electricity generated by the dam. But bugs in the PDP-10 computer prevented them from working. The "problem description" mentioned a huge number of bugs, plus the names of two programmers who discovered them - Bill Gates and Paul Allen. TRV found programmers and invited them for an interview in Portland, Oregon.
“No one knew that we were only in the ninth and tenth grades.”
They still got hired. Gates got a license to practice at Lake Side and moved to Portland, where he and Allen rented an apartment, then began working under programmer John Norton. Norton impressed the desperate boys with the ability to memorize a printout of the operating system in five thousand sheets. Norton, Gates says, encouraged him to do better work.
“I have an image in my head of that guy named Norton that I met at TRV. He always told me when I wasn't doing a brilliant job. So when I get lazy or careless, I always imagine him coming up to me, looking at the program and remarking: “Listen, there is a way to do this better.”
Gates returned home and graduated from high school in 1973, scoring a maximum of 800 in mathematics on the school curriculum exam.
Vernon Harrington of Lakeside School wrote a letter of recommendation for Gates at Harvard. It said:
“In the tenth grade, Bill Gates was known as a great fan of computers. The boy is a real genius: he coped with mathematical calculations faster than teachers and, together with two friends, signed a contract with a firm in Portland. The work was done. They were paid five thousand dollars of computer time each - the time they later used to computerize school planning."
Janet Lowe, Bill Gates Speaks, ., "Ast"; "Transitbook", 2004, p. 15-25.
