J. M. R. Parrondo
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 Photographed in 2003 by Derek Abbott |
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| Born | January 9, 1964 Madrid, Spain |
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| Residence |  Spain |
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Field | Physicist |
| Institution | UCM |
| Alma Mater | UCM |
| Doctoral Advisor | Javier de la Rubia |
| Doctoral Students | Javier Buceta Borja Jiménez Luis Dinis |
| Known for | Parrondo's paradox Brownian ratchets Physics of information Statistical mechanics |
J. M. R. Parrondo, also Juan Manuel Rodríguez Parrondo, (b. January 9, 1964) is a Spanish physicist best known for the strikingly counterintuitive Parrondo's paradox, where switching between losing strategies can in some cases win. In 1996, he developed games of chance, now called Parrondo's games, that exhibited this apparently paradoxical phenomenon. Much of his work touches on thermodynamics and information, and he is known for contributions to the theory of noised induced phase transitions, Brownian ratchets, physics of information, and statistical mechanics.
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[edit] Biography
He was born in Madrid, Spain, as Juan Manuel Rodríguez Parrondo. He obtained both his bachelors degree (1987) and his PhD (1992) from the Complutense University of Madrid. His external doctoral advisor was Javier de la Rubia based at UNED. The topic of Parrondo's doctoral thesis was in the area of stochastic differential equations and random walks in fractals.
After his doctoral thesis, Parrondo carried out postdoctoral research that combined themes in information theory and thermodynamics—this proved influential in shaping his future directions. As a postdoctoral researcher he worked on noise induced phase transitions with Katja Lindenberg at UCSD, USA, in 1992; neural networks with Chris Van den Broeck at Hasselt University, Belgium, in 1993; Maxwell demons under Thomas M. Cover at Stanford University, USA, in 1995.
In 1996, he obtained a permanent position at the Complutense University of Madrid and it was in this year that he devised the concept of losing games of chance, which paradoxically win when combined. In 1999, he visited Marcello O. Magnasco at the Rockefeller University, New York, working on Brownian ratchets and Derek Abbott at the University of Adelaide, Australia, working on Parrondo's games. In 2005, Parrondo performed another extended collaborative visit, this time with Carlos Bustamante at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, working in molecular motors.
In the 2003-2004 period, Parrondo performed a regular series of science items for the Spanish Public National Radio (RNE). From 2001 to present, Parrondo is the Spanish equivalent of Martin Gardner writing the "Mathematical Games" column for the Spanish edition of Scientific American called Investigación & Ciencia. Although this column in the English-speaking version has been discontinued, the Mathematical Games column is alive and well under the leadership of Parrondo in the Spanish edition.
[edit] Genesis of Parrondo's Games
Parrondo initially devised his countintuitive games of chance, in 1996, as an illustration of how Brownian ratchets operate and first presented the idea on a viewgraph slide entitled How to Cheat a Bad Mathematician, at an EEC workshop on Complexity and Chaos, Torino, Italy. In that same year he published an article critiquing Richard Feynman's analysis of a Brownian ratchet in the American Journal of Physics. Derek Abbott at the University of Adelaide, Australia, was working on a related, but still unsolved, problem regarding Feynman's analysis. Parrondo's article prompted Abbott to fly to Madrid in 1997 and they met for the first time—but the problem proved tough and it was not until 1999 they they finally published a solution. However, in the meantime, Parrondo shared the concept of his paradoxical games—consequently Abbott coined the terms Parrondo's paradox and Parrondo's games, publishing verification of the result in the journal Nature, in 1999.
[edit] Parrondo Trivia
- In various articles and internet sources Parrondo's name is sometimes incorrectly spelled "Parrando." This can be traced to a January 25, 2000 article on Parrando's Paradox (sic) in the New York Times—due to the influential nature of this newspaper, this typing error propagated widely to writers and journalists who did not check their sources.
- Parrondo was inspired to study physics when he was at high-school, after reading an article on quantum mechanics by Douglas Hofstadter published in Scientific American. Hofstadter replaced Martin Gardner, when Gardner retired from Scientific American. Curiously, history has gone full circle, as Parrondo is now serendipitously the Mathematical Games columnist for the Spanish edition of Scientific American.
- The Spanish traditionally all have two surnames and Spanish scientists normally use the first surname when publishing in English-speaking journals. So one would think that the double surname "Rodríguez Parrondo" should be shortened to simply "Rodríguez" and not "Parrondo." However, in 1992, when Parrondo published his first article in English he chose to stick with his second surname, as "Rodríguez" is a very common name and not very distinctive. Again, this proved to be highly serendipitous as the "Rodríguez paradox" does not quite have that alliterative ring to it.
- Although Parrondo is left handed, he uses his right hand for playing the Spanish classical guitar and also for operating a computer mouse.
- In 1999, Parrondo attended a conference where papers were double-blind reviewed. "Double-blind review" means that author names are not revealed to the reviewers, in order to eliminate bias. Reviewers were asked to guess the names of the authors, in order to check the effectiveness of the blind process. All five of Parrondo's reveiwers mistook him to be Rolf Landauer who, upto that point, was the leader in the area of physics of information. Unbeknownst to the reviewers, Rolf Landauer had actually died a few days earlier. In order to mark this transition, the committee presented Parrondo with an informal "Landauer award" during the conference banquet.
[edit] Works by Juan M.R. Parrondo
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