Tommaso Toffoli

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Tommaso Toffoli
Born June 22, 1943
Residence Unknown
Nationality Italian
Institutions Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University
Alma mater University of Rome, University of Michigan

Tommaso Toffoli is a computer scientist. He was a colleague of Norman Margolus and Edward Fredkin, with whom he did pioneering work in cellular automata. In 1980 he invented the Toffoli gate. In 1987, he and Norman Margolus created Critters, a reversible block cellular automaton with similar dynamics to Life.

Also with Margolus, he authored Cellular Automata Machines, in which they explore computer architecture optimized to simulate cellular automata, and describe the CAM-6 accelerator, a PC-compatible expansion board designed to simulate cellular automata, which was manufactured in limited quantities by Systems Concepts due to production problems.

With Edward Fredkin, he invented the billiard-ball computer, a theoretical model of a reversible computer, which in turn can be simulated by reversible cellular automata.[1]

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