Philip Emeagwali was born on August 23, 1954. He is a Nigerian computer scientist. He has made claims about inventing the Internet and creating the world's fastest computer, the Connection Machine. These claims are disputed by the scientific community.

Biography

Philip Emeagwali was born on August 23, 1954, in Akure, Nigeria. He grew up in Onitsha, located in the southeastern region of Nigeria. His schooling was interrupted in 1967 because of the Nigerian Civil War. At the age of 13, he worked in the Biafran army. After the war ended, he completed high school through self-study. Later, he married Dale Brown Emeagwali, an African-American microbiologist.

Education

He received a scholarship to study in the United States after finishing a course at the University of London. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Oregon State University in 1977. He later moved to Washington, D.C., where he earned a master's degree in ocean and marine engineering from George Washington University in 1986 and another master's degree in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland. Next magazine reported that Emeagwali claimed to have additional degrees. During this time, he worked as a civil engineer for the Bureau of Land Reclamation in Wyoming.

Emeagwali pursued a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan from 1987 to 1991. His thesis was not accepted by a committee of examiners, so he did not receive the degree. Emeagwali filed a lawsuit, claiming the decision violated his civil rights and that the university had discriminated against him due to his race. The lawsuit was dismissed, and an appeal to the Michigan state Court of Appeals was also denied.

"Supercomputing"

In 1989, Emeagwali received the $1,000 Gordon Bell Prize for using the CM-2, a powerful computer that uses many processors working together. His project used computer models of how fluids move to study oil reservoirs. He won in the "price/performance" category, achieving a performance of about 400 Mflops per $1 million. Another winner in the "performance" category, Mobil Research and Thinking Machines, used the CM-2 for seismic data processing and achieved a higher ratio of 500 Mflops per $1 million. The judges decided each entry could only receive one prize. Emeagwali’s method required each microprocessor to communicate with six others. His simulation was the first program to use a pseudo-time approach for reservoir modeling. He was recognized by Bill Clinton as an example of what Nigerians can achieve with opportunities and is often highlighted in media articles during Black History Month.

Debunked controversial claims

Emeagwali has made several disputed claims about his achievements that many scientists and reporters disagree with.

He claimed to be the "father of the Internet," to have invented the Connection Machine, to have 41 patented inventions, to have won "the Nobel Prize of Computing," and to hold titles such as "doctor" or "professor." These claims have been proven to be false with clear evidence. In April 2009, during a visit to Switzerland, Emeagwali stated he was the first to program a hypercube to solve a major problem in computing called the "20 gold-ring challenge." He said this discovery helped lead to the development of supercomputers used in the Internet. He also claimed his work set three world records and improved on Newton's second law of motion.

Although Emeagwali calls himself "Professor Emeagwali" or "Doctor Emeagwali," he is not a professor or a PhD. He did not finish the Ph.D. program he started at the University of Michigan. University records show he failed his Ph.D. qualifying exams twice and wrote a doctoral dissertation that did not meet the required standards. Because of this, he was not awarded a Ph.D. He filed a lawsuit against the university, claiming racial discrimination, but the case was dismissed because there was no evidence to support it. Investigations confirmed that Emeagwali has never published research in a peer-reviewed journal or owned any patents, which contradicts his claims.

Selected publications

• Emeagwali, P. (2003). How do we reverse the brain drain. A speech presented at the Pan-African Conference on Brain Drain in Elsah, Illinois, USA.
• Emeagwali, P. (1997). Can Nigeria leapfrog into the information age. In the World Igbo Congress. New York: August.