Jonathan Bowers (also called Hedrondude or Jabe) is an American amateur mathematician, considered "the father of modern googology."[1][2] He introduced array notation to the public in 2002, a simple function that defines provably larger numbers than Knuth arrows, Steinhaus polygons, or chained arrows. Years later, with help from Chris Bird and John Spencer, Bowers developed a generalization called BEAF, which competes with many of the larger functions in the fast-growing hierarchy.
Bowers has coined many colorful names for numbers that he has defined, such as dossol and trongulus. His largest number is Utter Oblivion, though his most famous number is meameamealokkapoowa oompa, formerly his largest number.
Bowers has coined a total of 353 googologisms as of March 2021. He was considered to hold the world record for most googolisms until it was surpassed by Sbiis Saibian, another famous googologist.
Outside of large number studies, he is best known for his work with polytopes, shapes like polyhedra and polygons as well as their higher-dimensional analogues. He reportedly began his search for uniform polychora (4-dimensional polytopes) in the 1990s, independently discovering many of the currently known uniform polychora and coining names for them.
Biography[]
Bowers was born on November 27, 1969 in Tyler Texas USA. He has one known sibling, his brother Jeff Bowers[3] - who is a painter by trade - and Cindy Bowers, who may be his mother, or his aunt, or another relative (who has a cute dog and cat named Sandy).[4]
Jonathan Bowers appears to have been raised as a Christian, and believes in God.[5] He graduated from John Tyler High School in 1988 and went on to graduate from the University of Texas at Tyler in 1996.[6]
Like Chris Bird, he has a Master's degree in mathematics.[7]
Sources[]
- ↑ Bowers' personal website
- ↑ Saibian, Sbiis. The Astounding Work of Jonathan Bowers. One to Infinity. Retrieved February 2013.
- ↑ http://www.polytope.net/hedrondude/knotboxes.htm
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/cindy.bowers.167
- ↑ http://www.polytope.net/hedrondude/existence.htm
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.bowers.988
- ↑ Bowers' website in 2002, archived in One to Infinity
External links[]
See also[]
External link: Personal website
Concepts: googology · large number · eventual domination · ordinal · cardinal · recursion · infinity
Important numbers and functions: googol · googolplex · -illions · hyper operators · Graham's number · Extensible-E System · Bowers' Exploding Array Function · Bird's array notation · TREE sequence · Busy beaver function · fast-growing hierarchy · Rayo's number
People: Chris Bird · Jonathan Bowers · Harvey Friedman · Lawrence Hollom · André Joyce · Leo Moser · Robert Munafo · Sbiis Saibian · Aarex Tiaokhiao