Nathan Myhrvold
| Nathan Myhrvold | |
|---|---|
 Nathan Myhrvold |
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| Born | August 3, 1959 Seattle, Washington |
| Institutions | Intellectual Ventures, University of Cambridge, Microsoft Research |
| Alma mater | Princeton University, UCLA |
Nathan Paul Myhrvold (born August 3, 1959 in Seattle, Washington), formerly Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, is co-founder of Intellectual Ventures. Myhrvold, usually with coinventors, holds 17 U.S. patents assigned to Microsoft[1] and has applied for more than 500 patents.[2] In addition, Myhrvold and coinventors hold 115 U.S. patents assigned mostly to The Invention Science Fund I, LLC.[3]
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[edit] Early life and education
Myhrvold attended Mirman School,[4] and began college at age 14.[5] He studied mathematics, geophysics, and space physics at UCLA (BSc, Masters). He was awarded a Hertz Foundation Fellowship for graduate study and he chose to study at Princeton University, where he earned a master's degree in mathematical economics and completed a PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics by age 23.[6] He also attended Santa Monica College. For one year, he held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge working under Stephen Hawking, studying cosmology, quantum field theory in curved space time, and quantum theories of gravitation.
[edit] Career
Myhrvold left Cambridge to co-found a computer startup in Oakland, California. The company, Dynamical Systems Research Inc., sought to produce Mondrian, a clone of IBM's TopView multitasking environment for DOS. Microsoft purchased DSR in 1986.
Myhrvold worked at Microsoft for 13 years. At Microsoft he founded Microsoft Research in 1991.[7]
After Microsoft, in 2000 Myhrvold co-founded Intellectual Ventures,[8] a patent portfolio developer and broker in the areas of technology and energy, which has acquired over 30,000 patents[9] and whose business practices have caused some controversy, being described by some as a patent troll company.[10] Among its companies is TerraPower, which is aiming to develop a nuclear reactor that is safe and cheap, as part of Bill Gates' strategy to the goal of zero carbon emissions globally by 2050.[11] Gates unveiled his vision for the world's energy future at the TED 2010. The plant will run on natural or depleted uranium with the potential for 100 years without refuelling.
[edit] Hobbies and pursuits
Myhrvold is a prize-winning nature and wildlife photographer.[12]
[edit] Science
He is also involved with paleontological research on expeditions with the Museum of the Rockies. His work has appeared in scientific journals including Science[13], Nature[14], Paleobiology[15] (With Philip J. Currie), PLoS ONE[16] and the Physical Review[17], as well as Fortune, Time, Scientific American[18], National Geographic Traveler and Slate. He and Peter Rinearson helped Bill Gates write The Road Ahead, a book about the future that reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list in 1995 and 1996. Myhrvold has contributed $1 million to the nonprofit SETI Institute in Mountain View, CA, for the development of the Allen Telescope Array, planned to be the world's most powerful radio telescope.
After the Science Museum in London successfully built the computing section of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine #2 in 1991, Myhrvold funded the construction of the output section, which performs both printing and stereotyping of calculated results. He also commissioned the construction of a second complete Difference Engine #2 for himself, which has been on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California since May 10, 2008.[19][20][21]
[edit] Cooking
In addition to his business and scientific interests, he is a master French chef who has been a member of the first and second place team in the world championship of barbecue in Memphis, Tennessee. An early culinary learning experience took place when he was allowed to act as an observer and apprentice at Rover's, one of Seattle's leading restaurants, with Chef Thierry Rautureau.[22] Myhrvold is the principal author of a book of culinary reference and instruction entitled Modernist Cuisine, released in March 2011, on the application of scientific research principles and new techniques and technology to cooking.[23]
[edit] Advocacy
On December 20, 2009, Myhrvold appeared on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS and discussed his patented idea to eliminate global warming/climate change using geoengineering. It involves using hoses suspended from helium balloons 25 kilometers (16 mi) above the Earth. The hoses would be placed near the North Pole and the South Pole and emit sulfur dioxide, which is known to scatter light. Myhrvold estimated that such a configuration could "easily dim the sun by one percent, and even do it in a way that wouldn't be visible."[24]
[edit] Affiliations and awards
Myhrvold is also a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Advisory Board[25]
In 2010, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top 100 global thinkers.[26]
[edit] References
- ^ Search for Myhrvold's Microsoft patents - use search argument in Query box: IN/Myhrvold and AN/Microsoft
- ^ Search for Myhrvold's pending patent applications - use search argument in Query box: IN/Myhrvold-Nathan-P
- ^ Search for Myhrvold's non-Microsoft patents - use search argument in Query box: IN/Myhrvold-Nathan-P andnot AN/Microsoft
- ^ "Where Bright Minds Can Shine", Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times, 22 November 2000
- ^ Oversight Testimony “Patent Quality and Improvement” before the Subcommittee on the Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, House Committee on the Judiciary, United States Congress, 28 April 2005
- ^ Corcoran, E. (1993) Profile: Nathan P. Myhrvold – The Physicist as a Young Businessman, Scientific American 268(2), 34-35.
- ^ Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold Takes Leave of Absence. . PressPass (Microsoft). 1999-06-01. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/Jun99/MyhrvoldPR.mspx. Retrieved 2006-10-14.
- ^ "Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures" (PDF). http://webreprints.djreprints.com/2032070014238.pdf. Retrieved 2008-09-15. Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2008
- ^ Harris, Mark (2010-05-16). "Green Pioneers: Godfather of nutty inventions". The Times (London). http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/entrepreneur/article7127608.ece. Retrieved 2010-06-02. Mark Harris, The Sunday Times, May 16, 2010
- ^ "This American Life: When Patents Attack". 2011-07-24. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack. Retrieved 2011-07-25. Ira Glass, NPR, July 24, 2011
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaF-fq2Zn7I&feature=relmfu Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero!
- ^ "International Conservation Photography Awards 2008 Gallery". http://www.icpawards.com/2008Winners/Flora.html. Retrieved 2009-09-08.[dead link]
- ^ Myhrvold, N. (1998). "ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: Supporting Science". Science 282 (5389): 621–622. doi:10.1126/science.282.5389.621.
- ^ Barsbold, R.; Currie, P. J.; Myhrvold, N. P.; Osmólska, H.; Tsogtbaatar, K.; Watabe, M. (2000). "A pygostyle from a non-avian theropod". Nature 403 (6766): 155–156. doi:10.1038/35003103. PMID 10646588.
- ^ Currie, Philip; Myhrvold, Nathan (1997). "Supersonic sauropods? Tail dynamics in the diplodocids". Paleobiology 23 (4): 393–409. http://paleobiol.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/4/393.
- ^ Horner, J. R.; Goodwin, M. B.; Myhrvold, N. (2011). Roopnarine, Peter. ed. "Dinosaur Census Reveals Abundant Tyrannosaurus and Rare Ontogenetic Stages in the Upper Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation (Maastrichtian), Montana, USA". PLoS ONE 6 (2): e16574. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0016574. PMC 3036655. PMID 21347420. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3036655.
- ^ Myhrvold, N. (1983). "Runaway particle production in de Sitter space". Physical Review D 28 (10): 2439–2444. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.28.2439.
- ^ Gibbs, W. W.; Myhrvold, N. (2011). "A new spin on cooking". Scientific American 304 (3): 23. PMID 21438483.
- ^ "Computer History Museum unboxes a Babbage difference engine". http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/21/computer-history-museum-unboxes-a-babbage-difference-engine/. Retrieved 2008-04-28.
- ^ "The Computer History Museum Extends Its Exhibition of Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2". press release. Computer History Museum. March 31, 2009. http://www.computerhistory.org/press/babbage-engine-extension.html. Retrieved 2009-11-06.
- ^ "The Babbage Engine exhibit at Computer History Museum". http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/. Retrieved 2011-04-07.
- ^ "Edge profile". http://www.edge.org/digerati/myhrvold/. Retrieved 2007-05-10.
- ^ "Modernist Cuisine". http://www.modernistcuisine.com. Retrieved 2010-09-15.
- ^ "Solving Global Warming with Nathan Myhrvold". CNN. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0912/20/fzgps.01.html.
- ^ Advisors. USA Science and Engineering Festival
- ^ "Foreign Policy's Second Annual List of the 100 Top Global Thinkers". Foreign Policy. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/29/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=0,37. Retrieved 2011-03-23.
[edit] Further reading
- Auletta, Ken, "The Highwaymen", Harvest Books, 1998. ISBN 0-15-600573-5 — cf Chapter 17: The Microsoft Provocateur: Nathan Myhrvold, Bill Gates Corporate Gadfly.
- Edstrom, Jennifer and Eller, Marlin, "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates: Microsoft From The Inside: How The World's Richest Corporation Wields Its Power", Holt Paperbacks, 1999. ISBN 0-8050-5755-2
[edit] External links
- Biography from Intellectual Ventures
- Who's afraid of Nathan Myhrvold?, Fortune, July 10, 2006
- In the Air: Who says big ideas are rare?, Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker, May 12, 2008
- The intellectual venturer, by Michael Watts 21.January 2011 Wired UK
- Microsoft’s Former CTO Takes On Modernist Cuisine, by Mark McClusky February 24, 2011 Wired.com
- TED talk (embedded video): Nathan Myhrvold: A life of fascinations
- "Inside Nathan Myhrvold's Mysterious New Idea Machine". BusinessWeek. July 3, 2006. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_27/b3991401.htm. Retrieved 24 June 2011.
