Michael Aaron Nielsen (born January 4, 1974) is an Australian-American

quantum physicist Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is the foundation of a ...

, science writer, and computer programming researcher living in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Work

In 1998, Nielsen received his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in physics from the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; ) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1889 by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature, it is the state's second oldest university, a flagship university in th ...

. In 2004, he was recognized as Australia's "youngest academic" and was awarded a Federation Fellowship at the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

. During this fellowship, he worked at the

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy ...

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

, and at the

Perimeter Institute Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI, Perimeter, PITP) is an independent research centre in foundational theoretical physics located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1999. The institute's founding and major benefactor i ...

for Theoretical Physics. Alongside

Isaac Chuang Isaac L. Chuang is an American electrical engineer and physicist. He leads the quanta research group at the Center for Ultracold Atoms at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his undergraduate degrees in physics (1990) and elec ...

, Nielsen co-authored a popular textbook on

quantum computing A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena. On small scales, physical matter exhibits properties of wave-particle duality, both particles and waves, and quantum computing takes advantage of this behavior using s ...

, which has been cited more than 52,000 times as of July 2023. In 2007, Nielsen shifted his focus from quantum information and computation to “the development of new tools for scientific collaboration and publication”, including the

Polymath project The Polymath Project is a collaboration among mathematicians to solve important and difficult mathematical problems by coordinating many mathematicians to communicate with each other on finding the best route to the solution. The project began in J ...

with

Timothy Gowers Sir William Timothy Gowers, (; born 20 November 1963) is a British mathematician. He is the holder of the Combinatorics chair at the Collège de France, a director of research at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College, Camb ...

, which aims to facilitate "massively collaborative mathematics." Besides writing books and essays, he has also given talks about

open science Open science is the movement to make scientific research (including publications, data, physical samples, and software) and its dissemination accessible to all levels of society, amateur or professional. Open science is transparent and accessib ...

. He was a member of the Working Group on Open Data in Science at the

Open Knowledge Foundation Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) is a global, non-profit network that promotes and shares information at no charge, including both content and data. It was founded by Rufus Pollock on 20 May 2004 in Cambridge, England. It is incorporated in Engla ...

. Nielsen is a strong advocate for open science and has written extensively on the subject, including in his book '' Reinventing Discovery'', which was favorably reviewed in

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

and named one of the

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

' best books of 2011. In 2015 Nielsen published the online textboo
''Neural Networks and Deep Learning''
and joined the

Recurse Center The Recurse Center (formerly known as Hacker School; also called RC) is an independent educational institution, that combines a retreat for computer programmers with a recruiting agency. The retreat is an intentional community, a self-directed aca ...

as a Research Fellow for a year.Recurse Center Blog
/ref> He then joined Y Combinator Research as a Research Fellow from 2016 to 2019. In 2019, Nielsen collaborated with Andy Matuschak to develo
''Quantum Computing for the Very Curious''
a series of interactive essays explaining

and

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

. With

Patrick Collison Patrick Collison (born 9 September 1988) is an Irish entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and current CEO of Stripe, which he started with his younger brother, John, in 2010. He won the 41st Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2005 at t ...

, he researched whether scientific progress is slowing down. Nielsen resides in San Francisco.

Bibliography

* * This book is based on themes that are also covered in his essay on the ''Future of Science''. * * (Review of ''Information: The New Language of Science'' (2003) by Hans Christian von Baeyer)

References

External links

Michael Nielsen's account on TwitterPersonal website of Nielsen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nielsen, Michael 1974 births Living people Science bloggers 21st-century science writers Open content activists Theoretical physicists Australian textbook writers Quantum information scientists California Institute of Technology fellows University of New Mexico alumni