Popular Science - Greg Chaitin

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Gregory Chaitin
(1947-)

Gregory J. Chaitin is at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in New York and is the discoverer of the remarkable Omega number. His theory of algorithmic information develops an idea in Leibniz's "Discours de metaphysique" (1686), and shows that God not only plays dice in quantum physics, but even, in a sense, in pure mathematics.

Website: http://www.cs.umaine.edu/~chaitin

Gregory Chaitin has devoted his life to the attempt to understand what mathematics can and cannot achieve, and is a member of the digital philosophy/digital physics movement. Its members believe that the world is built out of digital information, out of 0 and 1 bits, and they view the universe as a giant information-processing machine, a giant digital computer.

Gregory Chaitin's books include:

Conversations with a Mathematician, Springer-Verlag, 2002:
This book is wonderful in both senses of the word: superlatively good and full of wonder.
Non mathematicians could read it, too, but as I read it, I felt glad (and proud) to be a mathematician!
Marion D. Cohen in the American Mathematical Monthly

"Meta Math! The Quest for Omega," Pantheon, 2005:
This fascinating insight into the mind of a mathematician, explaining the route to the discovery of Omega, is now available as a true book.

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