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David Gelernter
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David Gelernter
David Hillel Gelernter (born March 5, 1955) is an American computer scientist, artist, and writer. He is a professor of computer science at Yale University.
Gelernter is known for contributions to parallel computation in the 1980s, and for books on topics such as computed worlds (Mirror Worlds). Gelernter is also known for his belief, expressed in his book America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered in the Obamacrats), that liberal academia has a destructive influence on American society. He is in addition known for his views against women in the workforce, and his rejection of the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change and evolution.
In 1993 Gelernter was sent a mail bomb by Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. He opened it and the resulting explosion almost killed him, leaving him with permanent loss of use of his right hand as it destroyed four fingers, and permanent damage to his right eye.
Gelernter grew up on Long Island, New York. His father Herbert Gelernter was a physicist who, in the late 1950s and 1960s, became a pioneer in artificial intelligence and taught computer science at State University of New York at Stony Brook. Gelernter's grandfather was a rabbi, and Gelernter grew up as a Reform Jew; he later became a follower of Orthodox Judaism.
He received his Bachelor of Arts in computer science from Yale University in 1976 and received a Master of Arts in Classical Hebrew literature from the same university. He earned his Ph.D. from State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1982.
In the 1980s, Gelernter made seminal contributions to the field of parallel computation, specifically the tuple space coordination model, as embodied by the Linda programming system he and Nicholas Carriero designed (which he named for Linda Lovelace, the lead actress in the porn movie Deep Throat, mocking the naming of the programming language Ada in tribute to the scientist and first attributed computer programmer, Ada Lovelace). Bill Joy cited the Linda system as the inspiration for many elements of JavaSpaces and Jini.
In January 1993 in his book Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox...How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean, Gelernter wrote: "...people and software work hand-in-glove – and sometimes hand-in-hand."
On June 24, 1993, Gelernter was severely injured opening a mail bomb sent to him by the Unabomber. He recovered from his injuries, but his right hand (which he covers with a glove) and eye were permanently damaged. Some in the press suggested that there were parallels between his thoughts on the need for a human element to computers and those of the Unabomber. He chronicled the ordeal in his 1997 book Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber. Two years after the bombing, the Unabomber sent Gelernter a letter, writing: "People with advanced degrees aren't as smart as they think they are."
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David Gelernter
David Hillel Gelernter (born March 5, 1955) is an American computer scientist, artist, and writer. He is a professor of computer science at Yale University.
Gelernter is known for contributions to parallel computation in the 1980s, and for books on topics such as computed worlds (Mirror Worlds). Gelernter is also known for his belief, expressed in his book America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered in the Obamacrats), that liberal academia has a destructive influence on American society. He is in addition known for his views against women in the workforce, and his rejection of the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change and evolution.
In 1993 Gelernter was sent a mail bomb by Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. He opened it and the resulting explosion almost killed him, leaving him with permanent loss of use of his right hand as it destroyed four fingers, and permanent damage to his right eye.
Gelernter grew up on Long Island, New York. His father Herbert Gelernter was a physicist who, in the late 1950s and 1960s, became a pioneer in artificial intelligence and taught computer science at State University of New York at Stony Brook. Gelernter's grandfather was a rabbi, and Gelernter grew up as a Reform Jew; he later became a follower of Orthodox Judaism.
He received his Bachelor of Arts in computer science from Yale University in 1976 and received a Master of Arts in Classical Hebrew literature from the same university. He earned his Ph.D. from State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1982.
In the 1980s, Gelernter made seminal contributions to the field of parallel computation, specifically the tuple space coordination model, as embodied by the Linda programming system he and Nicholas Carriero designed (which he named for Linda Lovelace, the lead actress in the porn movie Deep Throat, mocking the naming of the programming language Ada in tribute to the scientist and first attributed computer programmer, Ada Lovelace). Bill Joy cited the Linda system as the inspiration for many elements of JavaSpaces and Jini.
In January 1993 in his book Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox...How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean, Gelernter wrote: "...people and software work hand-in-glove – and sometimes hand-in-hand."
On June 24, 1993, Gelernter was severely injured opening a mail bomb sent to him by the Unabomber. He recovered from his injuries, but his right hand (which he covers with a glove) and eye were permanently damaged. Some in the press suggested that there were parallels between his thoughts on the need for a human element to computers and those of the Unabomber. He chronicled the ordeal in his 1997 book Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber. Two years after the bombing, the Unabomber sent Gelernter a letter, writing: "People with advanced degrees aren't as smart as they think they are."
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