Leslie Greengard

Leslie Greengard is an American mathematician, computer scientist and physician who, with Vladimir Rokhlin, co-invented the fast multipole method (1987), an algorithm widely hailed as one of the most important of the 20th century for rapidly computing long-range interactions. It revolutionized large-scale scientific computing in physics, astronomy and engineering, and he later directed NYU's Courant Institute. Born in London and raised in the United States, Greengard is of Jewish background.