THE EDGE OF COMPUTATION SCIENCE PRIZE

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THE $100,000 EDGE OF COMPUTATION SCIENCE PRIZE

For individual scientific work, extending the computational idea, performed, published, or newly applied within the past ten years.

The Edge of Computation Science Prize, established by Edge Foundation, Inc., is a $100,000 prize initiated and funded by science philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein.

Metaphors of information processing and computation are at the center of today's intellectual action. A new and unified language of science is beginning to emerge. Concepts of information and computation have infiltrated a wide range of sciences, from mathematics, physics and cosmology, to cognitive psychology, to evolutionary biology, to genetic engineering. Such innovations as the binary code and the algorithm have been applied in ways that reach far beyond the programming of computers, and are being used to understand such mysteries as the origins of the universe, the operation of the human body, and the working of the mind. These are the areas of exploration that have been central to Edge.

The Prize recognizes individual achievement in scientific work that embodies extensions of the computational idea — the design space created by Turing. It is a 21st Century prize in recognition of cutting edge work — theoretical, experimental, or both — performed, published, or newly applied within the past ten years.

While many people may contribute to any advance, no advance takes place without an individual who has the will to impose a new reality on the world. The Prize recognizes such individuals, who may be nominated as a leader, or representative, of a team. (A nomination of two-person collaboration was allowed in the slim chance the judges determine that the collaboration is so extraordinary that an exception is warranted.)

The Prize is not a lifetime achievement award. It is (a) an Edge Prize that focuses on "the edge of the world's knowledge" in 2005, and (b) a science prize, not an engineering prize, which encompasses computer science but is far more broadly construed.

Edge asked ask a wide array of people who bring a diversity of interests and expertise to participate in the nominating process by nominating an individual for the Prize within the above parameters. The judges, who shall remain anonymous, are members of the Edge community in computational science.

The list of nominees will be announced Tuesday, November 1st at Festival della Scienza 2005 in Genoa and simultaneously on Edge. The judging will take place on Tuesday-Wednesday, November 8th & 9th, and the winner will be announced on this page on Thursday. November 11th.

—JB

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