An interview with Prof. Avi Wigderson -
The Israel-born Wigderson is the only person in the world to be awarded both the Abel Prize, which is regarded as the "Nobel Prize for mathematics", and the Turing Prize, its equivalent in the field of computer science.
He is currently a theoretical computer science researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton.
"It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of Wigderson’s work. Yannis Ioannidis, president of ACM, the association that awards the Turing Award, described him as a "towering intellectual force in theoretical computer science." Jeff Dean, Senior Vice President at Google, which sponsors the $1 million financial grant accompanying the award, said. "Wigderson’s work... has set the agenda in theoretical computer science for the past three decades." Both of them also emphasized in their reasoning that he was a mentor and research partner of more than 100 people - a matter that is not taken for granted in a field that is perceived as very isolated, a domain of eccentric geniuses."
Wigderson entered the field at the rise of the personal computer in the '70s, and played a significant role in the theoretical developments that enabled the growth of today's Internet. In a series of articles he published from the 1980s onwards, "he reshaped the understanding of the role of randomness in computation, when he proved that for every fast algorithm that can solve a difficult problem by flipping a coin, there is an almost as fast algorithm that does not use coin flipping, provided that certain conditions are met. In other words, he showed that randomness can actually be dispensed with in any efficient algorithm."
In this interview, he talks about his area of research including cryptography and the impact of AI.
Finally, Wigderson, whose parents are Holocaust survivors, shares his thoughts on the current anti-semitism and pro-Palestinian demonstrations on U.S. college campuses -
"I'm not worried, and I don't think that these demonstrations will do to us what the Nazis did to us in Europe. Not at all. In fact, I sympathize with many of these demonstrations, at least those that concern the situation of the Palestinians in Gaza. Of course, I wouldn't want to see violence against Israelis or Jews, but I don't want there to be violence anywhere. In any case, we don't experience it at all here. It's a peaceful town and we're in a super-peaceful corner of it, so it didn't reach us in any direct way."
And, his concerns about the Israeli leadership -
"I'm not saying it's not anti-Semitism, but it's clear where it comes from. It comes from the actions of the current government, and I'm pessimistic about the running of the state under it."
#israel #science #technology #internet #abelprize #turingprize #gaza
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