By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 14, 2008
Alexandria's TopQuadrant has hired itself a math genius, which is not necessarily surprising. The company specializes in "semantic Web," which is a fancy name for technology that helps computers talk to each other. Big-brain types are a must-have in this line of work.
Indeed, this might be the sort of hiring announcement we'd skip right over. Except that they sent us this picture of the new guy.
So we figured if he's half as interesting to talk to as he is to look at, he would make for good copy.
His name is Jeremy Carroll, he's 44, and he's TopQuadrant's chief product architect. He has math degree from Oxford and a PhD in computational linguistics and is a 16-year Hewlett-Packard veteran. He's a rock star in the math community for solving the 6-Venn triangle problem in 1999. Mathematicians use Venn diagrams to find relationships between objects, a tool that can help computers talk to each other.
Q How did you come
to TopQuadrant ?
A The company appealed primarily because of the team. I like the people I've met, and getting on well with the people you work with is important.
What is semantic Web?
A merge between databases and Web technology -- not with the database just providing the back end for the Web, but the Web being part of the database.
Explain to ordinary Internet surfers why their lives will be better if machines can talk to each other.
The machine will be able to do more. For example, if you move your home, you will have only one place to change your address, and the update will propagate to everyone who knows your address. Another example: Say someone wants to know how to do a back flip. He can already use Google to find various instructions. Semantic Web technology may help him find instructions from sources he trusts, or consensus instructions from many different sources, or instructions that other people have already found helpful (rather than back-breaking searches and comparisons).
Aren't you really inventing Skynet, the military computer from "The Terminator" that became sentient and tried to kill everyone?
No. The problem is more that our systems are stupid, and the next step is to make them not quite so dumb.
That still makes us nervous. Are you sure?
Yes; pretty much.
What is more beautiful, a 6-Venn triangle or Mandelbrot set fractal?
The Venn triangles are better, because the beauty is much less in-your-face. There's no obvious regularity, but once you see what's driving them, the pictures have an exquisite delicacy.
Who's your hero?
Évariste Galois. French mathematician, killed in a duel, over a lover, at [20]. He was up all night before he died, writing up his beautiful theory; passionate; misunderstood; recognized long after his death.
All right. We've gotta ask: Please explain your sartorial style.
I wear clothes I like; it's sad that that is a surprising choice, particularly for men. I would like to hope that we can all wear clothes we like, but instead we face a lot of pressure to wear the same as other people. I strive to be a cheerful, colorful, happy person; I find wearing cheerful, colorful outfits helps. It's me.
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