Frederick Kantor
Frederick W. Kantor | |
|---|---|
Kantor in 2018 | |
| Born | July 19, 1942 |
| Died | May 15, 2020 (aged 77) New York, New York |
| Alma mater | Columbia University (1964) |
| Known for | Information mechanics |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics, Inventions |
| Institutions | Columbia University |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert Novick |
| Other academic advisors | Polykarp Kusch |
Frederick Kantor (July 19, 1942 – May 15, 2020) was an American physicist and inventor. He is known for his early work on digital physics, originally coined by Kantor as information mechanics which described "previously thought dissimilar phenomena, such as the fine structure constant (on the scale of the very small) and cosmological red shift (on the scale of the very large)".
Greg Bear cited Kantor's Information Mechanics as an inspiration for his 1990 novel Heads. A Reddit editor named delverofsecrets created an Internet hoax involving an apparently chance meeting of Kantor and hundreds of Reddit followers at 6½ Avenue in Manhattan on July 12, 2012; the crowd was eventually dispersed by the New York Police Department.