Who was Seppo Linnainmaa?
Seppo Ilmari Linnainmaa is a Finnish mathematician and computer scientist born on the 28th of September 1945, in Pori, Finland. He is known for creating the modern version of backpropagation.
Questions about Seppo Linnainmaa
Short answers, pulled from the story.
When did Seppo Linnainmaa receive his doctorate?
Seppo Linnainmaa received his doctorate in 1974, the first ever awarded in computer science at the University of Helsinki.
What did Seppo Linnainmaa discover in his 1970 master's thesis?
In his 1970 master's thesis, Seppo Linnainmaa introduced the reverse mode of automatic differentiation. The method computes the derivative of a differentiable composite function represented as a graph by recursively applying the chain rule to its building blocks.
Did Seppo Linnainmaa invent backpropagation before anyone else used the idea?
Seppo Linnainmaa published the first account of the method, but Gerardi Ostrowski had already applied a similar idea to process models in chemical engineering roughly five years earlier. Ostrowski never published his version.
What positions did Seppo Linnainmaa hold at VTT and the University of Maryland?
Seppo Linnainmaa was Research Professor at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland from 1989 until his retirement in 2007. He was also Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland in the United States from 1984 to 1985.
What role did Seppo Linnainmaa have in the Finnish Artificial Intelligence Society?
Seppo Linnainmaa chaired the Finnish Artificial Intelligence Society from 1986 to 1989.