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John F. McGowan, Ph.D.

John F. McGowan, Ph.D. solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars (anticipating the discovery of methane on Mars), and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He can be reached at jmcgowan11@earthlink.net. This article is copyright © of John F. McGowan, Ph.D.

Articles

Applied Math

Gold Fever

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. Common quotation, variously attributed to Yogi Berra, Niels Bohr, Mark Twain and others. Introduction In Isaac Asimov’s famous science fiction…

Applied Math

Symbolmania

Hobbes: “A new decade is coming up.” Calvin: “Yeah, big deal! Hmph. Where are the flying cars? Where are the moon colonies? Where are the personal robots and…

Applied Math

Quantum Catfight

During the seventeenth century, the physicist Isaac Newton conducted a series of experiments studying the properties of light. Newton encountered a puzzling enigma. He found that light behaved…

History

An Unreasonable Man

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.…