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| {{Infobox scientist
| | I'm Callum and I live with my husband and our 3 children in Zone, in the BS south area. My hobbies are Martial arts, Tour skating and Painting.<br><br>Here is my webpage; [http://Www.Edsyazilim.com/index.php?do=/blog/422/fifa-coin-generator/ Fifa 15 Coin Generator] |
| |name = Nicholas Constantine Metropolis
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| |image = Nicholas Metropolis cropped.PNG
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| |image_size = 188px
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| |caption =
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| |birth_date = {{Birth date|1915|6|11}}
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| |birth_place = [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]], [[USA]]
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| |death_date = {{Death date and age|1999|10|17|1915|6|11}}
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| |death_place = [[Los Alamos, New Mexico|Los Alamos]], [[New Mexico]], [[USA]]
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| |residence =
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| |citizenship = [[United States of America|American]]
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| |nationality =
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| |ethnicity = [[Greece|Greek]]
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| |fields = [[Physicist]], [[Mathematician]]
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| |workplaces = [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]]
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| |alma_mater = [[University of Chicago]]
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| |doctoral_advisor =
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| |academic_advisors =
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| |doctoral_students =
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| |notable_students =
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| |known_for = {{ubl|[[Monte Carlo method]]|[[Simulated annealing]]|[[Metropolis–Hastings algorithm]]}}
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| |awards =
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| |religion =
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| |footnotes =
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| }}
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| '''Nicholas Constantine Metropolis''' ([[Greek language|Greek]]: {{lang|grc|Νικόλαος Μητρόπουλος}},<ref>{{ cite journal | url=http://www.tovima.gr/science/article/?aid=187490 | title=Ελληνική σφραγίδα στο πρώτο μηχανοργανωμένο πείραμα |trans_title=Greek contribution on the first computerized experiment |language=Greek |journal=[[Ta Nea]] |last= Varvoglis | first=Ηaris |location=Athens, Greece |accessdate=December 6, 2012 |date=March 16, 2008 }}</ref> June 11, 1915 – October 17, 1999) was a [[Greek American]] [[physicist]].<ref>[http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Metropolis.html Metropolis, Nicholas Constantine (1915–1999)] Eric Weisstein's World of Biography</ref>
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| ==Work==
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| Metropolis received his BSc (1937) and PhD (1941) degrees in physics at the [[University of Chicago]]. Shortly afterwards, [[Robert Oppenheimer]] recruited him from Chicago, where he was at the time collaborating with [[Enrico Fermi]] and [[Edward Teller]] on the first nuclear reactors, to the [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]]. He arrived in Los Alamos, on April 1943, as a member of the original staff of fifty scientists.
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| ==After World War II==
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| [[File:Metropolis Nicholas Badge.gif|left|thumb|Metropolis's wartime [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] badge photo.]]
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| After [[World War II]], he returned to the faculty of the University of Chicago as an assistant professor. He came back to Los Alamos in 1948 to lead the group in the Theoretical Division that designed and built the [[MANIAC I]] computer in 1952 that was modeled on the [[IAS machine]], and the [[MANIAC II]] in 1957. (He chose the name MANIAC in the hope of stopping the rash of such acronyms for machine names, but may have, instead, only further stimulated such use.)<ref>{{cite journal|title=Obituary: Nicholas Constantine Metropolis|author=[[Nandor Balazs|Balazs, N. L.]]; [[John C. Browne|Browne, J. C.]]; Louck, J. D.; Strottman, D. S.|journal=Physics Today|date=October 2000|volume=53|issue=10|pages=100–101||url=http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~junliu/Course/C03/stat171/metropolis.htm|doi=10.1063/1.1325208}}</ref> ([[John von Neumann]] may have encouraged him to use this acronym.) From 1957 to 1965 he was Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago and was the founding Director of its [[Institute for Computer Research]]. In 1965 he returned to Los Alamos where he was made a Laboratory Senior Fellow in 1980.
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| ==Monte Carlo method==
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| At Los Alamos, in the 1950s, a group of researchers led by Metropolis, including [[John von Neumann]] and [[Stanislaw Ulam]], developed the [[Monte Carlo method]].<ref>Nicolas Metropolis.[http://lib-www.lanl.gov/la-pubs/00326866.pdf The Beginning of the Monte Carlo Method]. ''Los Alamos Science'', No. 15, Page 125.</ref> Generally speaking, the Monte Carlo method is a statistical approach to solve deterministic many-body problems. In 1953 Metropolis co-authored the first paper on a technique that was central to the method now known as [[simulated annealing]].<ref name=metropolis>{{cite journal |author=N. Metropolis, A.W. Rosenbluth, M.N. Rosenbluth, A.H. Teller, and E. Teller |title=Equation of State Calculations by Fast Computing Machines |journal=Journal of Chemical Physics |volume=21 |issue=6 |pages=1087–1092 |year=1953 |doi=10.1063/1.1699114|bibcode = 1953JChPh..21.1087M }}</ref> This landmark paper showed the first numerical simulations of a [[liquid]]. The algorithm for generating samples from the [[Boltzmann distribution]] was later generalized by W.K. Hastings to become the [[Metropolis-Hastings algorithm]]. He is credited as part of the team that came up with the name Monte Carlo method in reference to a colleague's relative's love for the casinos of Monte Carlo. [[Monte Carlo methods]] are a class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to compute their results. In statistical mechanics applications prior to the introduction of the Metropolis algorithm, the method consisted of generating a large number of random configurations of the system, computing the properties of interest (such as energy or density) for each configuration, and then producing a [[weighted average]] where the weight of each configuration is its [[Boltzmann factor]], <math>e^{-E/kT}</math>, where <math>E</math> is the [[energy]], <math>T</math> is the [[temperature]], and <math>k</math> is the [[Boltzmann constant]]. The key contribution of the Metropolis paper was the idea that
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| {{quotation|Instead of choosing configurations randomly, then weighting them with exp(−''E''/''kT''), we choose configurations with a probability exp(−''E''/''kT'') and weight them evenly.|Metropolis et al.|<ref name=metropolis />}}
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| ==Associations and honors==
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| Metropolis was a member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]], the [[Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics]] and the [[American Mathematical Society]]. In 1987 he became the first Los Alamos employee honored with the title "emeritus" by the [[University of California]]. Metropolis was also awarded the [[IEEE Computer Pioneer award|Pioneer Medal]] by the [[Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers]], and was a fellow of the [[American Physical Society]].
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| The Nicholas Metropolis Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Work in Computational Physics is awarded annually by the [[American Physical Society]].<ref>[http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/dissertation/metropolis.cfm Nicholas Metropolis Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Work in Computational Physics]</ref>
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| ==Acting career==
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| Metropolis played the part of a scientist in the [[Woody Allen]] film ''[[Husbands and Wives]]'' (1992).<ref>{{IMDb name|id=0582604}}</ref>
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| ==Personal life==
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| Metropolis had a son, Christopher, and two daughters, Penelope and Katharine. He was an avid skier and tennis player until his mid-seventies. He died at a nursing home in [[Los Alamos, New Mexico]].<ref>[http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/pa/News/101999.html Nick Metropolis dead at 84]. ''Los Alamos National Laboratory Daily News Bulletin''. Oct 19, 1999.</ref>
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| ==Anecdotes==
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| In his memoirs,<ref>S. M. Ulam, Adventures of a mathematician, California University press</ref> [[Stanislaw Ulam]] remembers that a small group, including himself, Metropolis, [[John Wilson Calkin|Calkin]], [[Emil Konopinski|Konopinski]], [[George Kistiakowsky|Kistiakowsky]], [[Edward Teller|Teller]] and [[von Neumann]], spent several evenings at [[Los Alamos, New Mexico|Los Alamos]] playing poker. They played for very small sums, but: "Metropolis once described what a triumph it was to win ten dollars from John von Neumann, author of a famous treatise on game theory. He then bought his book for five dollars and pasted the other five inside the cover as a symbol of his victory." In another passage of his book, Ulam describes Metropolis as "a Greek-American with a wonderful personality."
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| ==See also==
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| *[[stochastics]]
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| *[[ENIAC]]<ref>http://history.siam.org/metropolis.htm</ref>
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| *[[Colossus computer]]
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| *[[von Neumann paradox]]
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| ==References==
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| {{reflist}}
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| ==External links==
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| {{Wikiquote}}
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| * [http://purl.umn.edu/107493 Oral history interview with Nicholas C. Metropolis], Conducted by [[William Aspray]] at [[Charles Babbage Institute]], University of Minnesota. Metropolis, the first director of computing services at [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]], discusses [[John von Neumann]]'s work in computing. Most of the interview concerns activity at Los Alamos: how von Neumann came to consult at the laboratory; his scientific contacts there, including Metropolis, [[Robert Richtmyer]], and [[Edward Teller]]; von Neumann's first hands-on experience with punched card equipment; his contributions to shock-fitting and the implosion problem; interactions between and comparisons of von Neumann and [[Enrico Fermi]]; and the development of [[Monte Carlo method|Monte Carlo techniques]]. Other topics include: the relationship between [[Alan Turing]] and von Neumann; work on numerical methods for non-linear problems; and the [[ENIAC]] calculations done for Los Alamos.
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| * Francis Harlow and Nicolas Metropolis. [http://lib-www.lanl.gov/la-pubs/00285876.pdf Computing and Computers -- Weapons Simulation Leads to the Computer Era]. ''Los Alamos Science'' No. 7, Page 132.
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| * Herbert Anderson. [http://lib-www.lanl.gov/la-pubs/00326886.pdf Metropolis, Monte Carlo and the MANIAC]. ''Los Alamos Science'' No. 14, Page 69.
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| {{Authority control|VIAF=91590166}}
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| {{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. -->
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| | NAME = Metropolis, Nicholas
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| | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Metropolis, Nicholas Constantine (full name)
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| | SHORT DESCRIPTION = Greek American physicist
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| | DATE OF BIRTH = June 11, 1915
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| | PLACE OF BIRTH = [[Chicago]], Illinois, USA
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| | DATE OF DEATH = October 17, 1999
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| | PLACE OF DEATH = [[Los Alamos, New Mexico]], USA
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| }}
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| {{DEFAULTSORT:Metropolis, Nicholas C}}
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| [[Category:1915 births]]
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| [[Category:1999 deaths]]
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| [[Category:20th-century mathematicians]]
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| [[Category:American mathematicians]]
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| [[Category:American computer scientists]]
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| [[Category:American physicists]]
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| [[Category:Greek academics]]
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| [[Category:Greek computer scientists]]
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| [[Category:Greek mathematicians]]
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| [[Category:Greek physicists]]
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| [[Category:Manhattan Project people]]
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| [[Category:Monte Carlo methodologists]]
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| [[Category:University of Chicago alumni]]
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| [[Category:University of Chicago faculty]]
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I'm Callum and I live with my husband and our 3 children in Zone, in the BS south area. My hobbies are Martial arts, Tour skating and Painting.
Here is my webpage; Fifa 15 Coin Generator