Clifford Alan Pickover is an American author, editor, and columnist in the fields of science, mathematics, science fiction, innovation, and creativity. For many years, he was employed at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, New York, where he was editor-in-chief of the IBM Journal of Research and Development. He has been granted more than 700 U.S. patents, is an elected Fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and is author of more than 50 books, translated into more than a dozen languages.
In the 1990s, Pickover created virtual caverns from extremely simple numerical simulations that reminded him of the Lechuguilla Cave, pictured here.
Visualization of chaotic attractor. Pickover's earliest books often focused on patterns that characterize mathematics such as fractals, chaos, and number theory. Computer graphics, reminiscent of this chaotic attractor, were common in his early works.
Forest troll. (Theodor Kittelsen, 1906). Some of Pickover's later books often discussed "science at the edges," including such topics as parallel universes, quantum immortality, alien life, and elf-like beings seen by some people who use dimethyltryptamine.
Thomas J. Watson Research Center
The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for IBM Research. The center comprises three sites, with its main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, U.S., 38 miles (61 km) north of New York City, New York and with facilities in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Albany, New York.
The main laboratory building of the IBM Research Center is located in Yorktown Heights, New York, U.S.
Satellite view of the main building
