John von Neumann (born Margittai Neumann János Lajos on December 28, 1903 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary; died February 8, 1957 in Washington D.C., United States) was a Austria-Hungary-born American mathematician who made contributions to quantum physics, functional analysis, set theory, topology, economics, computer science, numerical analysis, hydrodynamics (of explosions), …

Rudolf von Bitter Rucker (born March 22, 1946 in Louisville, Kentucky) is an American computer scientist and science fiction author, and is one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known for the novels in the Ware Tetralogy, the first two of which ("Software" and "Wetware") both won Philip K. Dick Awards. Rucker is the great-great-great-grandson of the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. (Cf.

John Horton Conway (born December 26, 1937, Liverpool, England) is a prolific mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He has also contributed to many branches of recreational mathematics, notably the invention of the Game of Life (the cellular automaton, not the board game). Conway is currently professor of mathematics at Princeton University.

Don Hopkins is an artist and programmer specializing in computer-human interaction and computer graphics. He invented pie menus, inspired Richard Stallman to use the term copyleft, coined Deep Crack as the name of the EFF DES cracker, built imaginative applications for the NeWS window system, ported the "SimCity" computer game to several versions of Unix and developed a multi player version of SimCity for X11, …

Martin Gardner (b. October 21, 1914, Tulsa, Oklahoma) is a popular American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing magic (conjuring), pseudoscience, literature (especially Lewis Carroll), philosophy, and religion. He wrote the "Mathematical Games" column in "Scientific American" from 1956 to 1981 and has published over 60 books.

Manuel DeLanda, (born 1952 in Mexico City), is a writer, artist and distinguished philosopher who has lived in New York since 1975. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University (New York), a Professor for Contemporary Philosophy and Science at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, a professor at the Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, …

Edgar Frank "Ted" Codd was a British computer scientist who made seminal contributions to the theory of relational databases. While working for IBM, he created the relational model for database management. He made other valuable contributions to computer science, but the relational model, a very influential general theory of data management, remains his most memorable achievement.

Ralph William Gosper, Jr., (b. 1943) known as Bill Gosper, is an American mathematician and programmer from Pennsauken, New Jersey. Along with Richard Greenblatt, he may be considered to have founded the hacker community, and holds a place of pride in the Lisp community. He is also noted for his work on continued fractional representations of real numbers, …

Edward Fredkin (born 1934) is an early pioneer of digital physics (in recent work he uses the term digital philosophy (DP)). His main contributions include his work on reversible computing and cellular automata. While Konrad Zuse's book Calculating Space (1969) mentioned the importance of reversible computation, the Fredkin gate represented the essential breakthrough. Edward Fredkin dropped out of Caltech after one year and, at age 19, …

Joseph Nechvatal (born 1951) is a post-conceptual digital artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses. He started this work in 1986.

Alvy Ray Smith III (born 8 September 1943) is a noted pioneer in computer graphics. In 1965, he received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from New Mexico State University. In 1970 he received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University, with a dissertation on cellular automata. From 1969 to 1973 he was an associate professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at New York University.

Melanie Mitchell is a scientist who has worked at the Santa Fe Institute and Los Alamos National Laboratory. She received her PhD in 1990 from the University of Michigan under Douglas Hofstadter and John Holland, for which she developed the Copycat cognitive architecture. She has also critiqued Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science". She is the author of "An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms" (ISBN 0-262-63185-7), …

David Eppstein (born 1963) is a computer scientist at the Computer Science Department, Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, University of California, Irvine. He is best known for his work in computational geometry, graph algorithms, and recreational mathematics.

Mary Ann Horton, formerly Mark R. Horton, was a Usenet pioneer. Horton co-wrote the B News server software. In the early 1970's, Horton designed and implemented the HORTRAN compiler. He was an expert user of early networked computing systems, such as the HP 2000 minicomputer, and provided fellow students with valuable advice that led many to life-long careers in computer science and related fields that rely heavily on computing.

Tommaso Toffoli is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Boston University. He joined the faculty in 1995. He received his doctorate in physics from the University of Rome in 1967. In 1976 he received a Ph.D. in computer and communication science from the University of Michigan. In 1977, he joined the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has worked on cellular automata and the theory of artificial life (with Edward Fredkin and others), …

Noam D. Elkies (born 1966 in New York City) is a mathematician. While an undergraduate at Columbia University, he was a three-time Putnam Fellow. He won the 1982 competition at the age of sixteen years and four months, making him possibly the youngest Putnam Fellow in history. After graduating as valedictorian, he earned his Ph.D. under supervision of Benedict Gross and Barry Mazur at Harvard University.

Eric Antonio Goles Chacc is a Chilean mathematician and computer scientist. He studied civil engineering at the University of Chile before taking two doctorates at the University of Grenoble in France. A professor at the University of Chile, he is known for his work on cellular automata. Goles was born in Antofagasta, northern Chile. He is of Croat origin (his name is originally spelled "Goleš").

Stephen M. Omohundro (1959 -) is a computer scientist. He graduated from Stanford University with degrees in Physics and Mathematics. He received a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley and published the book "Geometric Perturbation Theory in Physics" based on his thesis. At Thinking Machines Corporation, he developed the Star Lisp, the programming language for the Connection Machine, with Cliff Lasser.

Brian Carey Goodwin (1931) is a recognized mathematician and a biologist born in Montreal, Canada. He studied at McGill University and then emigrated to the UK where he became full professor at the Open University until retirement in 1992. He is a key founder of a branch of mathematical biology known as theoretical biology that focuses on the methods of mathematics and physics to understand processes in biology.

Ed Pegg, Jr. is an expert on mathematical puzzles and is a self-described recreational mathematician. He creates puzzles for the Mathematical Association of America online at Ed Pegg, Jr.'s "Math Games". His puzzles have also been used by Will Shortz on the puzzle segment of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday. In other work, he collaborated with Stephen Wolfram on "A New Kind of Science" (NKS), and contributes online to the associated forum.

Christopher Langton (1949-) is an Amarican biologist and one of the founders of the field of artificial life. He coined the term in the late 1980s when he organized the first "International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems" (otherwise known as Artificial Life I) at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1987. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Langton created the Langton ant and Langton loop, both simple artificial life simulations, …

Brosl Hasslacher (May 13, 1941 to November 11, 2005) was a theoretical physicist. Brosl Hasslacher obtained a bachelor's in physics from Harvard University in 1962. He did his Ph.D. with D.Z. Freeman and C.N. Yang at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. After having several postdoctoral and research positions at Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, Caltech, ENS in Paris, and CERN, …

Norman Packard (born 1954 in Silver City, New Mexico) is a chaos theory physicist and one of the founders of the Prediction Company and ProtoLife. He is an alumnus of Reed College and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Packard is known for his contributions to both chaos theory and cellular automata. He also coined the phrase "the edge of chaos".

Charles H. Bennett is an IBM Fellow at IBM Research. Bennett's recent work at IBM has concentrated on a re-examination of the physical basis of information, applying quantum physics to the problems surrounding information exchange. He has played a major role in elucidating the interconnections between physics and information, particularly in the realm of quantum computation, but also in cellular automata and reversible computing.

Matthew Cook (February 7, 1970 -) is a mathematician and computer scientist who proved Stephen Wolfram's conjecture that the Rule 110 cellular automaton is Turing-complete. Rule 110 is arguably the simplest Turing-complete system currently known.

Voja Antonić is a Serbian inventor, journalist and writer. He was also a magazine editor and contributed to a number of radio shows but he is best known for creating a build-it-yourself home computer Galaksija and originating a related "Build your own computer Galaksija" initiative with Dejan Ristanović. The result of this initiative is, perhaps, his crowning achievement - he encouraged and enlightened thousands of computer enthusiasts during 1980s.

Charles Platt (born in London, England, 1945) is the author of 41 fiction and nonfiction books, including science-fiction novels such as "The Silicon Man" and "Protektor" (published in paperback by Avon Books). He has also written non-fiction, particularly on the subjects of computer technology and cryonics, as well as teaching and working in these fields. Platt relocated from England to the United States in 1970 and is a naturalized U. S. citizen.

John R. Myhill was a mathematician. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University under Willard Van Orman Quine in 1949. He was professor at SUNY Buffalo from 1966 until his death in 1987. He also taught at several other universities. In the theory of cellular automata, Myhill is known for proving the Garden of Eden theorem, stating that a cellular automaton is reversible if and only if it has no pattern with no predecessor, …

John B. ("Jack") Corliss is a scientist who has worked in the fields of geology, oceanography, and the origins of life. Corliss received his PhD from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the 1960s. As part of his doctoral work under Jerry van Andel, he analyzed samples of basaltic rock from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Chemical traces in these rocks showed evidence of hot-water circulation, suggesting the existence of undersea hot springs (hydrothermal vents).

Eduardo Reck Miranda, Ph.D, (born 1960s), is a Brazilian composer of chamber and electroacoustic pieces but is most notable in the United Kingdom for his scientific research into computer music, particularly in the field of human-machine interfaces where brain waves will replace keyboards and voice commands to permit the disabled to express themselves musically.

Andrei Toom, also known as André Toom, (born 1942) is a Russian mathematician currently living in Brazil, famous for his early work in analysis of algorithms (culminating in theToom-Cook Algorithm), cellular automata, probability theory and lifelong interest in mathematical education. Currently, Toom is a teacher of the statistics department at Federal University of Pernambuco.

Jarkko J. Kari is a Finnish mathematician and computer scientist. He is most well-known for his ground-breaking contributions to the areas of cellular automata and Wang tiles. Kari is currently a professor at the Department of Mathematics, University of Turku.

Norman White (b. Texas) is a Canadian New Media artist and pioneer of using electronics and robotics in art.

Klaus Sutner is a professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and is also the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs for the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science. His research interests include cellular automata, discrete mathematics as pertains to computation, and computational complexity theory. He developed a hybrid Mathematica/C++ package that manipulates finites state machines and their syntactic semigroups called Automata.

Cosma Rohilla Shalizi (born February 28, 1974) is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Edward F. Moore (November 23, 1925 in Baltimore, Maryland-June 14, 2003 in Madison, Wisconsin) was a professor of mathematics and computer sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1966 until he retired in 1985. He was the first to use the type of Finite State Machine that is most commonly used today, the Moore FSM. With Claude Shannon he did seminal work on computability theory and making reliable circuits using less reliable relays.

Mike Lesser was born in 1943, in London. Mathematical philosopher and political activist. Youngest member of Committee of One Hundred. Sent, aged sixteen, to Wormwood Scrubs Prison London with most of the Committee. He has served two spells as editor of London's Anarchist journal International Times. He was active in May 1968 in Paris. In 1992 he was the co-author, with Prof A. Wuensche, of the book "The Global Dynamics Of Cellular Automata", …