Derek Abbott

Derek Abbott
Derek Abbott
	File:Derek Abbott 2007.jpg
Born	3 May 1960 (age 64); South Kensington, London, UK
Citizenship	Dual British-Australian
Alma mater	Loughborough University; University of Adelaide
Known for	Parrondo's paradox; Stochastics; T-rays
	Scientific career
Fields	Physicist and Electronic Engineer
Institutions	University of Adelaide; Austek Microsystems; GEC Hirst Research Centre
Doctoral advisor	Kamran Eshraghian; Bruce R. Davis
Doctoral students	Mark D. McDonnell; Adrian P. Flitney
Other notable students	Azhar Iqbal

Derek Abbott (3 May 1960, in South Kensington, London, UK) is a physicist and electronic engineer. He is a Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He is notable for leading theoretical work in the development of Parrondo's paradox, contributions to the field of stochastic resonance, and experimental contributions to T-ray imaging.

Early Years

In the period 1963-1965 Abbott attended the famous Norland College pre-school, Chislehurst, Kent, UK, as a boarder. Then during 1965-1967 he attended Oakfield School, Dulwich, UK, at the same time as the singer Kim Wilde. In 1968, he attended the École de Ferney-Voltaire, France, and the École Seminaire de Collonges-sous-Salève, France. In 1969 he did a stint at Bassett House School, London, UK.

In the 1969-1971 period, he was a boarder at Copthorne Preparatory School, Sussex, UK. He attended Copthorne Preparatory School at the same time as the deputy editor of Private Eye, Francis Wheen.

During 1971-1978 he attended the infamous Holland Park School, London, UK, known as the "socialist Eton." At Holland Park School, the singer Yazz was one of his classmates. Here, he was taught English Literature by the comedian Mike Walling and music by Andy Mackay who later became the saxophonist of Roxy Music. In the early 1970s he lived next door to Cat Stevens' drummer Gerry Conway in Holland Park, London.

Career

In 1978, he began work at GEC Hirst Research Centre, Wembley, UK, performing research in the area of CCD and microchip design for imaging systems. Whilst working, he graduated in 1982 with a BSc in Physics from Loughborough University, where his key intellectual influence was Nicholas J. Phillips. In 1986, at the time when the mysterious GEC deaths started, he began work as a microchip designer at Austek Microsystems in Adelaide, Australia. In 1987, he joined the University of Adelaide completing his PhD thesis in Electrical & Electronic Engineering in 1995, entitled GaAs MESFET Photodetectors for Imaging Arrays, under Kamran Eshraghian and Bruce R. Davis.^[1]

Teaching

He is currently a full professor at the University of Adelaide, where he has won a number of teaching awards. In the late 1990s, Abbott wore two watches, one on each wrist. When asked why, he would reply, "It is a way of identifying the best students—to check their powers of observation." In the 1990s, during undergraduate lectures, if a student raised a hand and spotted a mistake in the lecture material, Abbott would open his wallet and give the student the lowest coin or note that he happened to be carrying. On occasion, if he forgot to bring coins, he had to part with a high denomination. Around 1998, he also adopted the same prize money approach for the "most perceptive question" asked in a lecture.^[2]

Honours and awards

Stephen Cole the Elder Prize (1999)
Fellow of the Institute of Physics (Life) (2001)
Tall Poppy Award for Science (2004)
SA Great Award for Science & Technology (2004)
Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (2005)

Erdős number

Abbott's Erdős number is 4. His path to Erdős is as follows:

E. S. Key, M. M. Kłosek, and D. Abbott, "On Parrondo's paradox: how to construct unfair games by composing fair games," ANZIAM J., 47, no. 4, pp. 495-511, (2006).
M. M. Kłosek, B.J. Matkowsky, Z. Schuss, "First-order dynamics driven by rapid Markovian jumps," SIAM J. Appl. Math., 49, no. 6, pp. 1811-1833, (1989).
R. O. Davies and Z. Schuss, "A proof that Henstock's integral includes Lebesgue's," J. London Math. Soc., 2, pp. 561-562, (1970).
R.O. Davies and P. Erdös, "Splitting almost-disjoint collections of sets into subcollections admitting almost-transversals," Colloq. Math. Soc. Janos Bolyai, 10, North-Holland, Amsterdam, pp. 307-322, (1975).

Scientific genealogy

Abbott's scientific genealogy via his primary doctoral advisor runs as follows:

1774, MA, University of Cambridge, John Cranke
1782, MA, University of Cambridge, Thomas Jones
1811, MA, University of Cambridge, Adam Sedgwick
1830, MA, University of Cambridge, William Hopkins
1857, MA, University of Cambridge, Edward John Routh
1868, MA, University of Cambridge, John William Strutt (Lord Rayleigh)
1883, MA, University of Cambridge, J. J. Thomson
1903, MA, University of Cambridge, John Sealy Edward Townsend
1923, DPhil, University of Oxford, Victor Albert Bailey
1948, MSc, University of Sydney, Ronald Ernest Aitchison
1964, PhD, University of Sydney, Peter Harold Cole
1980, PhD, University of Adelaide, Kamran Eshraghian
1995, PhD, University of Adelaide, Derek Abbott

Humour

In 1999, Cosma Shalizi, at the Santa Fe Institute, made a bet that if Abbott included the name "Monica Lewinsky" in a published scientific journal article he would pay for one beer. Abbott successfully met the challenge, in a paper on game theory, published in the Chaos journal.^[3]

Books by Abbott

Mark D. McDonnell, Nigel G. Stocks, Charles E. M. Pearce, and Derek Abbott, Stochastic Resonance, Cambridge University Press, 2008, ISBN 9780521882620.

Derek Abbott, Paul C. W. Davies, and Arun K. Pati (Eds.), with Foreword by Roger Penrose, Quantum Aspects of Life, Imperial College Press, 2008, ISBN 9781848162532.

Selected publications

G. P. Harmer and D. Abbott, "Losing strategies can win by Parrondo's paradox," Nature (London), Vol. 402, No. 6764 p. 864, Dec. 1999.
J. M. R. Parrondo, G. P. Harmer and D. Abbott, "New paradoxical games based on Brownian ratchets," Physical Review Letters, Vol. 85, No. 24, pp. 5226-5229, Dec. 2000.
G. P. Harmer, D. Abbott, "Parrondo's paradox," Statistical Science, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 206-213, May 1999.
G. P. Harmer and D. Abbott, "A review of Parrondo's paradox," Fluctuation and Noise Letters, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. R71-R107, Jun 2002.
S. Mickan, D. Abbott, J. Munch, X.-C. Zhang and T. van Doorn, "Analysis of system trade-offs for terahertz imaging," Microelectronics Journal, Vol. 31, No. 7, pp. 503-514, Jul. 2000.
A. P. Flitney and D. Abbott, "Quantum version of the Monty Hall problem," Physical Review A, Vol. 65, Art. No. 062318, 2002.
G. P. Harmer, B. R. Davis, and D. Abbott "A review of stochastic resonance: circuits and measurement," IEEE Trans. Instrum. & Meas., Vol. 51, No. 2, pp. 299-309, Apr. 2002.
A. P. Flitney, J. Ng, and D. Abbott, "Quantum Parrondo's games," Physica A, Vol. 314, pp. 35-42, 2002.
D. Abbott, P. C. W. Davies, and C. R. Shalizi, "Order from disorder: the role of noise in creative processes," Fluctuation and Noise Letters, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. C1-C12, 2002.
D. Abbott, B. R. Davis, N. J. Phillips, and K. Eshraghian, "Simple derivation of the thermal noise formula using window-limited Fourier transforms," IEEE Trans. Education, Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 1-13, 1996.

References

Who's Who in South Australia, Ed. Suzannah Pearce, Publ: Crown Content Pty Ltd., Melbourne, Australia, 2007, p. 1, ISBN 978-1-74095-142-5

Abbott videos

Notes

^ http://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=101078
^ http://www.adelaide.edu.au/clpd/resources/leap/case_studies/abbott.html
^ Chaos, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 705-714, 2001.

External links

[1] ttp://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=101078

[2] ttp://www.adelaide.edu.au/clpd/resources/leap/case_studies/abbott.html

[3] Chaos, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 705-714, 2001.

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