I am currently the Managing Director of a very small Computer Consultancy called PerceptiSys Ltd here in the UK.
As an engineer, one of the aims of my little company is to build systems that think. That is, systems that are capable of learning about and then reasoning about their environment.
As a mathematician, I find that I require aspects of n-Category theory to be able to understand what the engineering should do. Basically systems that think (aka Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beasties (Robert Burns’ To a Mouse November 1785)) need to keep track of how spacetime is constructed from finite measurements and the results of past actions.
Given the deep moral implications of this work, another aim of my little company is to create an open patent covering as much of this technology as possible. (Any suggestions on how to create open patents would be most welcome!)
In my past life I have been, until 1996, an academic (research assistant with various academics) at the University of Warwick’s Mathematics Institute. I obtained my PhD under Anthony Manning in 1992 (for what it is worth, my mathematical genealogy can be found here). When the Berlin wall fell in 1989, there was such a surplus of superb Mathematicians in my area, Dynamical Systems, coming from the old Soviet Block countries, that, in 1996, I decided, instead of moving my young family around the world, I would, instead, move into industry.
Last revised on October 8, 2009 at 19:03:01. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.