Peter J. Weinberger
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Peter J. Weinberger is a computer scientist who works at Google.
He received his PhD in mathematics (number theory) in 1969 from the University of California, Berkeley under Derrick Henry Lehmer for his thesis entitled "Proof of a Conjecture of Gauss on Class Number Two". After holding a position in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he continued his work in analytic number theory, he moved to AT&T Bell Labs.
There he contributed to the design of the pioneering AWK programming language (he is the "W" in AWK). A detailed explanation of his contributions to AWK and other Unix tools can be found in an interview transcript at Princeton University. Another interview Laurianne McLaughlin, "From AWK to Google: Peter Weinberger Talks Search," IEEE Security & Privacy, vol. 3, no. 5, September/October 2005, pp. 11-13 sheds some light on his work at Google. Both interviews also confirm rumours about his involvement in early digital photography, especially the abuse of a photograph of his face for demonstrating digital imaging effects. When Peter Weinberger was promoted to head of Computer Science Research at Bell Labs, his picture was merged with the AT&T "death star" logo of the mid-80s, creating the PJW-Face image that has appeared in innumerable locations, including t-shirts, coffee mugs, CDs, and at least one water tower. Prior to joining Google he was chief technology officer at Renaissance Technologies.
[edit] Writings
- Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan, and Peter J. Weinberger (1988). The AWK Programming Language. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-07981-X. The book's webpage includes downloads of the current implementation of Awk and links to others.
