__NOTOC__ Neil James Alexander Sloane FLSW (born October 10, 1939) is a British-American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. His major contributions are in the fields of

combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many ...

error-correcting code In computing, telecommunication, information theory, and coding theory, forward error correction (FEC) or channel coding is a technique used for controlling errors in data transmission over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The centra ...

s, and

sphere packing In geometry, a sphere packing is an arrangement of non-overlapping spheres within a containing space. The spheres considered are usually all of identical size, and the space is usually three-dimensional Euclidean space. However, sphere packing p ...

. Sloane is best known for being the creator and maintainer of the

On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) is an online database of integer sequences. It was created and maintained by Neil Sloane while researching at AT&T Labs. He transferred the intellectual property and hosting of the OEIS to th ...

(OEIS).

Biography

Sloane was born in Beaumaris, Anglesey,

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

, in 1939, moving to

Cowes Cowes () is an England, English port, seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina, facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east bank. The two towns are linked b ...

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in 1946. The family emigrated to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, arriving at the start of 1949. Sloane then moved from

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in 1961. He studied at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

under Nick DeClaris,

Frank Rosenblatt Frank Rosenblatt (July 11, 1928July 11, 1971) was an American psychologist notable in the field of artificial intelligence. He is sometimes called the father of deep learning for his pioneering work on artificial neural networks. Life and career ...

, Frederick Jelinek and Wolfgang Heinrich Johannes Fuchs, receiving his Ph.D. in 1967. His doctoral dissertation was titled ''Lengths of Cycle Times in Random Neural Networks''. Sloane joined

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

in 1968 and retired from its successor

AT&T Labs AT&T Labs, Inc. (formerly AT&T Laboratories, Inc.) is the research & development division of AT&T, the telecommunications company. It employs some 1,800 people in various locations, including: Bedminster, New Jersey; Middletown Township, New J ...

in 2012. He became an AT&T

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

in 1998. He is also a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, an

IEEE Fellow , the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and ot ...

, a Fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

, and a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

. He is a winner of a Lester R. Ford Award in 1978 and the Chauvenet Prize in 1979. In 1998 he was an Invited Speaker of the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the IMU Abacus Medal (known before ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. In 2005 Sloane received the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal. In 2008 he received the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

David P. Robbins Prize, and in 2013 the George Pólya Award. In 2014, to celebrate his 75th birthday, Sloane shared some of his favorite integer sequences. Besides mathematics, he loves

rock climbing Rock climbing is a climbing sports discipline that involves ascending climbing routes, routes consisting of natural rock in an outdoor environment, or on artificial resin climbing walls in a mostly indoor environment. Routes are documented in c ...

and has authored two rock-climbing guides to

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

. He regularly appears in videos for Brady Haran's YouTube channel

Numberphile ''Numberphile'' is an Educational entertainment, educational YouTube channel featuring videos that explore topics from a variety of fields of mathematics. In the early days of the channel, each video focused on a specific number, but the channe ...

Selected publications

*Neil James Alexander Sloane, A Handbook of Integer Sequences, Academic Press, NY, 1973. * Florence Jessie MacWilliams and Neil James Alexander Sloane, The Theory of Error-Correcting Codes, Elsevier/North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1977. (xxii+762+6 pages) *M. Harwit and Neil James Alexander Sloane, Hadamard Transform Optics, Academic Press, San Diego CA, 1979. *Neil James Alexander Sloane and A. D. Wyner, editors,

Claude Elwood Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, computer scientist, cryptographer and inventor known as the "father of information theory" and the man who laid the foundations of th ...

: Collected Papers, IEEE Press, NY, 1993. *Neil James Alexander Sloane and S. Plouffe, The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, Academic Press, San Diego, 1995. * J. H. Conway and Neil James Alexander Sloane, Sphere Packings, Lattices and Groups, Springer-Verlag, NY, 1st edn., 1988; 2nd edn., 1993; 3rd ed., 1998. *A. S. Hedayat, Neil James Alexander Sloane and J. Stufken, Orthogonal Arrays: Theory and Applications, Springer-Verlag, NY, 1999. * G. Nebe, E. M. Rains and Neil James Alexander Sloane, Self-Dual Codes and Invariant Theory, Springer-Verlag, 2006.

References

External links

* * IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal Recipients
2005 – Neil J. A. Sloane
* Neil Sloane's entry in th

"The pattern collector"
Science News * Doron Zeilberger

* ttps://oeis.org/A195264/a195264.pdf Confessions of a Sequence Addict Neil Sloane {{DEFAULTSORT:Sloane, Neil 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Combinatorialists 1939 births Living people Scientists at Bell Labs Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Cornell University alumni University of Melbourne alumni Fellows of the IEEE People from Beaumaris Fellows of the Learned Society of Wales On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences

Biography

Selected publications

See also

References

External links