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Michael D. Godfrey
My brief CV and Publications List (PDF)
Please send comments or questions to: michaeldgodfrey@gmail.com.
New: For now (August 2020) this is close to the auto translation of my old Google page. However, most of the links are broken by the auto translation and it does not appear feasible to restore them. Therefore I recommend use of my pages on ResearchGate or the Wayback Machine.
Starting in 1990 we conducted research in Analog VLSI Systems at Stanford University. This early work is reported in analog research. This included the development of analog circuits for wavelet transforms and image sensing circuits.
More broadly, we conduct research in Information and Computational Systems. Our objective is to create computational artifacts which satisfy optimality criteria as embedded systems. This objective is enabled by constructive mathematical engineering and, typically, by the availability of VLSI technology. The term constructive mathematical engineering is meant to encompass the theoretical developments in information theory (including signal processing, and various related special topics such as data compression, image analysis, etc.) which lead to optimal solutions for information processing systems. Due to the high computational performance and low cost of VLSI circuits these solutions can be constructed in a cost-effective manner.
We believe that VLSI technology permits computation to be an integral part of most engineering artifacts. This frees us from the constraints of the performance of conventional electromechanical systems and permits the construction of systems whose performance is determined by the results of computation. This methodology allows us to construct systems that directly implement theoretical results. In a broad sense, it is our intent to close the long-standing gap between theory and engineering practice, specifically through the use of VLSI computational constructs.
This will become a pervasive methodology because systems which make use of active engineering mathematics in the form of VLSI circuits will be very much more cost-effective than conventional systems. Ultimately, this form of engineering will provide cost-effective solutions to the most challenging problems in information engineering: problems that we cannot even begin to solve today.
Some key, but hard to find, papers in physics, information, and communications are to be found at: Physics, information, and communication.
Or, if you are interested in other work that I have been involved in, such as statistics, mathematical economics, information, or computing look at: Statistics, Economics, Computing, and other research. This includes hard to find works by Morgenstern, von Neumann, Gabor, Einstein, Ville, Nyblen, and Feynman. I recently added a talk I gave at Google in August 2012. This talk addresses the fact that digital systems are unsafe. They are like writing information on papyrus. Information is continuously being lost. And, a remedy is suggested.
Finally, also in other research are two plays, one original and the other a translation, by a close friend, Ed Hartwick. I found them to be of great interest. Ed hoped to have them produced, but this did not happen during his lifetime.