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Steve Vickers (computer scientist)
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<h2 id="education">Education</h2> <p>Vickers graduated from <a href="/facts/King%2527s_College%2c_Cambridge/lMWG5JhK">King's College, Cambridge</a> with a degree in mathematics and completed a PhD at <a href="/facts/Leeds_University/XxFJF9Qh">Leeds University</a>, also in mathematics.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a> </p> <h2 id="sinclair-research">Sinclair Research</h2> <p>In 1980 he started working for Nine Tiles, which had previously written the <a href="/facts/Sinclair_BASIC/NCnAcdR3">Sinclair BASIC</a> for the <a href="/facts/ZX80/n7G0FJeW">ZX80</a>. He was responsible for the adaptation of the 4K <a href="/facts/ZX80/n7G0FJeW">ZX80</a> ROM into the 8K ROM used in the <a href="/facts/ZX81/I0uDYb3n">ZX81</a> and also wrote the ZX81 manual. He then wrote most of the ZX Spectrum ROM, and assisted with the user documentation. </p><p>Vickers left in 1982 to form "Rainbow Computing Co." with <a href="/facts/Richard_Altwasser/aUagoQe1">Richard Altwasser</a>. The company became <a href="/facts/Jupiter_Cantab/yNUsSWrf">Jupiter Cantab</a> and they were together responsible for the development of the commercially unsuccessful <a href="/facts/Jupiter_ACE/tKQmGffH">Jupiter ACE</a>, a competitor to the similar <a href="/facts/ZX_Spectrum/JVbaDHrU">ZX Spectrum</a>. </p> <h2 id="academia">Academia</h2> <p>Originally at the <a href="/facts/Department_of_Computing%2c_Imperial_College_London/t9579534">Department of Computing</a> at <a href="/facts/Imperial_College_London/SoXBRyax">Imperial College London</a>, Vickers later joined the Department of Pure Mathematics at the <a href="/facts/Open_University/XtKeHXvB">Open University</a> before moving to the School of <a href="/facts/Computer_Science/lN3pEyPz">Computer Science</a> at the <a href="/facts/University_of_Birmingham/b2YEFk2X">University of Birmingham</a>, where he is currently a senior lecturer and the research student tutor of the School of Computer Science. </p> <h2 id="research">Research</h2> <p>Vickers' main interest lies within geometric logic. His book <i>Topology via Logic</i> introduces <a href="/facts/Topology/2EqW47cU">topology</a> from the point of view of some computational insights developed by <a href="/facts/Samson_Abramsky/qpcVXuos">Samson Abramsky</a> and Mike Smyth. It stresses the <a href="/facts/Pointless_topology/AASaqh3w">point-free</a> approach and can be understood as dealing with theories in the so-called geometric logic, which was already known from <a href="/facts/Topos/zzttCIwC">topos</a> theory and is a more stringent form of <a href="/facts/Intuitionistic_Logic/zI7ulCnM">intuitionistic logic</a>. However, the book was written in the language of classical mathematics. </p><p>Extending the ideas to toposes (as generalised spaces) he found himself channelled into <a href="/facts/Constructive_mathematics/1VtNuLwT">constructive mathematics</a> in a geometric form and in <i>Topical Categories of Domains</i> he set out a geometrisation programme of, where possible, using this geometric mathematics as a tool for treating point-free spaces (and toposes) as though they had "enough points". Much of his subsequent work has been in case studies to show that, with suitable techniques, it was indeed possible to do useful mathematics geometrically. In particular, a notion of "geometric transformation of points to spaces" gives a natural fibrewise treatment of topological bundles. A recent project of his has been to connect this with the topos approaches to physics as developed by <a href="/facts/Christopher_Isham/SybHC2Bs">Chris Isham</a> and others (see Doering and Isham's <i>What is a Thing? Topos Theory in the Foundations of Physics</i>) at <a href="/facts/Imperial_College/SoXBRyax">Imperial College</a>, and Klaas Landsman's group at <a href="/facts/Radboud_University_Nijmegen/HzHJcIWX">Radboud University Nijmegen</a> (see Heunen, Landsman and Spitters' <i>A Topos for Algebraic Quantum Theory</i>). </p> <h2 id="bibliography">Bibliography</h2> <ul><li>Steven Vickers, "An induction principle for consequence in arithmetic universes", Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra 216 (8–9), ISSN 0022-4049, pp. 1705 – 2068, 2012.</li> <li>Jung, Achim and Moshier, M. Andrew and Vickers, Steven, "Presenting dcpos and dcpo algebras", in Bauer, A. and Mislove, M., Proceedings of the 24th Conference on the Mathematical Foundations of Programming Semantics (MFPS XXIV), pp. 209–229, Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Elsevier, 2008.</li> <li>Steven Vickers, "Cosheaves and connectedness in formal topology", Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, ISSN 0168-0072, 2009.</li> <li>Steven Vickers, "A localic theory of lower and upper integrals", Mathematical Logic Quarterly, 54 (1), pp. 109–103, 2008.</li> <li>Steven Vickers, "Locales and toposes as spaces", in Aiello, Marco and Pratt-Hartmann, Ian E. and van Benthem, Johan F.A.K., Springer, Handbook of Spatial Logics, Springer, 2007, <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-1-4020-5586-7, Chapter 8, pp. 429–496.</li> <li>Palmgren, Erik and Vickers, Steven, "Partial Horn logic and cartesian categories", Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, 145 (3), pp. 314–353, ISSN 0168-0072, 2007.</li> <li>Steven Vickers, "Localic completion of generalized metric spaces I, Theory and Applications of Categories", ISSN 1201-561X, 14, pp. 328–356, 2005.</li> <li>Steven Vickers, "Localic completion of generalized metric spaces II: Powerlocales, Journal of Logic and Analysis", ISSN 1759-9008, 1 (11), pp. 1–48, 2009.</li> <li>Steven Vickers, "The double powerlocale and exponentiation: a case study in geometric logic", Theoretical Computer Science, ISSN 0304-3975, vol. 316, pp. 297–321, 2004.</li> <li>Steven Vickers, "Topical Categories of Domains", in Winskel, Proceedings of the CLICS workshop, Aarhus, Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, 1992.</li> <li>Vickers, S. J., "Topology via Constructive Logic", in Moss and Ginzburg and de Rijke, Logic, Language and Computation Vol II, Proceedings of conference on Information-Theoretic Approaches to Logic, Language, and Computation, 1996, <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 1575861801, 157586181X, CSLI Publications, Stanford, pp. 336–345, 1999.</li> <li>Vickers, S. J., "Toposes pour les vraiment nuls", in Edalat, A. and Jourdan, S. and McCusker, G., Advances in Theory and Formal Methods of Computing 1996, <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 1-86094-031-5, Imperial College Press, London, pp. 1–12, 1996.</li> <li>Vickers, S. J., "Toposes pour les nuls", Techreport Doc96/4, <a href="/facts/Department_of_Computing%2c_Imperial_College_London/t9579534">Department of Computing</a>, <a href="/facts/Imperial_College_London/SoXBRyax">Imperial College London</a>, (first published in Semantics Society Newsletter no. 4).</li> <li>Broda, K. and Eisenbach, S. and Khoshnevisan, H. and Vickers, S.J., "Reasoned Programming", <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-13-098831-6, Prentice Hall, International Series in Computer Science, 1994.</li> <li><a href="/facts/Peter_T._Johnstone/j3k2A3Xl">Johnstone, P. T.</a> and Vickers, S. J., "Preframe Presentations Present", in Carboni, A. and Pedicchio, M.C. and Rosolini, G., Category Theory – Proceedings, Como 1990, <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 3-540-54706-1, 0-387-54706-1, Lecture Notes in Mathematics, 1488, Springer-Verlag, 1991.</li> <li>Steven Vickers, "Topology Via Logic", Cambridge University Press, <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-521-57651-2, 1996.</li> <li>Doring, Andreas and Isham, Chris, "What is a Thing?: Topos Theory in the Foundations of Physics", in Bob Coecke, New Structures in Physics, Chapter 13, pp. 753–940, Lecture Notes in Physics, 813, Springer, 2011, <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-3-642-12820-2, (also see arXiv:0803.0417v1.)</li> <li>Heunen, Chris and Landsman, Nicolaas P. and Spitters, Bas, A Topos for Algebraic Quantum Theory, 2009, Communications in Mathematical Physics, 291 (1), pp. 63–110, ISSN 0010-3616 (Print) 1432-0916 (Online).</li></ul> <h2 id="external-links">External links</h2> <ul><li><a href="https://sjvickers.github.io/">Steve Vickers' homepage</a></li> <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110516082258/http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/004/newbiz.htm">An interview</a> with Richard Altwasser and Steven Vickers</li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Vickers's age was given as 29 in a Sinclair User article from July 1982. "Sinclair User 4 - New Business". Archived from the original on 16 May 2011. Retrieved 14 May 2011., accessed 5 October 2013. <a href="/wiki/Sinclair_User" target="_blank">/wiki/Sinclair_User</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Laing, Gordon (7 September 2004). Digital retro. Sybex. ISBN 9780782143300. Retrieved 9 June 2011. The ROM size was doubled again...with Steve Vickers writing the lion's share <a href="9780782143300" target="_blank">9780782143300</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>"(article title missing)". Byte, Volume 8, Number 8. 1983. p. 43. Retrieved 9 June 2011. Steve Vickers and Richard Altwasser, who designed the Ace, were the codesigners of the Spectrum and are now ... <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NgUTAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Steve+Vickers%22+ROM" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=NgUTAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Steve+Vickers%22+ROM</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>YouTube video, Chris Isham: "Topos theory in the formulation of theories of physics" about 1 minute in. <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>Steve Vickers at the Mathematics Genealogy Project <a href="https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=168949" target="_blank">https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=168949</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>