Dominic Widdows received his doctorate in differential geometry from Oxford in 2000, after which he spent 3 years as a Senior Researcher at Stanford University's Center for the Study of Language and Information. He is now a Senior Research Engineer working for MAYA Design in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Most recent research papers are currently available on my MAYA homepage.
Geometry and Meaning is largely the result of research carried out from 2001-2004, while the author was leading Stanford University's Infomap Project, which still hosts the demos described in the book.
As well as Geometry and Meaning, the Infomap Project published a number of academic papers that describe and evaluate our research much more thoroughly for a techinical audience. These papers can be found on the author's CSLI home page.
My current research at MAYA Design is focussed on building an Information Commons, in
which publicly avaiable information such as demographic, epidemic,
environmental, literary and geographic information can be fused
together and linked into a comprehensive model of the world in
information space.
The technology, methods and goals are described on the collaborative
Civium Wiki.
Some of the author's other interests include music, crafts, wildlife, and the state of the world generally. Songs, a few poems, rings, and plenty of other information can be found on the Puttypeg Website and in Red Wine Wibbles, the author's weblog.
Note (of course) that all of the ideas expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect official views of either Stanford University, CSLI Publications, or MAYA Design.
Political Health Warning!
Some of this material is motivated by the world events we hear about every day.
Many pressure groups nowadays insist that those involved in science and scholarship should avoid making any political statements whatsoever (usually because these statements would conflict with the political agenda of the pressure groups in question). I cannot condone this stance without compromising my duty as a scholar, which is to see simple things clearly and describe them to the rest of the community. It is not about telling people what to think: it is about describing the thought of others throughout history, and making the tools of thought as widely available as possible.
If you are unafraid to challenge questions such as "What does the Bible actually say?" and "How democratic is the electoral process in different countries?" then you will find nothing offensive in my work, though much with which you may healthily disagree. As Thomas Jefferson, the author of the American Declaration of Independence, said at his presidential inauguration, "Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it."