This past week marked the passage of Leonard Nimoy. Here at ArrayFire, we are deeply saddened and touched by his departure. While Mr. Nimoy was anything but a scientist, mathematician, or programmer, he portrayed a character that embodied the best of all of those professions.
Whereas Mr. Nimoy has had a send off on major news outlets regarding his amazing career throughout his entire life, we would rather like to express how he specifically inspired us to ultimately pursue our careers and why we toil under the ArrayFire banner.
As everyone (hopefully) knows, Leonard Nimoy portrayed the character of Spock on Star Trek. Logical, brilliant, and supposedly emotionless, Spock served as friend and counter-balance to Kirk – the brash, head-strong, yet charming captain of the starship Enterprise. Moreover, Spock was a supreme scientist, mathematician, and programmer; professions that we all here at ArrayFire hold in the deepest regard.
Throughout the series, episodes examined the balance between Kirk and Spock and in so doing, played out the competitive use of charisma and daring against that of logic and science. Interestingly, whereas each episode picked a different balance of these tools, both where always used. Just as the resulting symbiosis in strategy came together for success, an obvious friendship was forged between Kirk and Spock. Each represented a different side of the same victorious coin and although pulling in opposite directions, the pair kept the Enterprise afloat.
Whereas Kirk seemingly played an invincible captain, the science portrayed by Spock was just as astounding. Backed by communicators, talking computers, sensors, tricorders, and much more, Spock manipulated technology to win out against all odds. In pre-WW2 times, he built a super-computer out of “stone knives and bear skins” to give Kirk the information he needed to save the future. Spiraling down towards a collapsing planet, Spock utilized a theoretical formula to restart cold warp-engines and save the ship. In almost every episode, he was almost always the first to be asked “what the hell is that?” (I might have paraphrased that quote).
At this point, you might assume that we are enamored by Spock and script writers – not Mr. Nimoy.
No.
Whereas Mr. Nimoy could have simply read a script and continued on his way, through his amazing talent, he made Spock a believable character and competitive friend to Kirk. In so doing, he made the science of the show believable and something to aspire to create. Everything going on beyond the science and with regards to Spock himself (through Mr. Nimoy’s genius) cast aside any doubts. Without the skillful acting, the fictitious science would have come across as simple magic thrown in as plot devices. (Of course, some episodes were written as such, but there was enough in the show to amazingly inspire).
At ArrayFire, we like to think of ourselves as helping to push our bleeding edge technology as hard as it can go to serve science and mathematics. On a couple of occasions, we consider ourselves to have built supercomputers out of “stone knives and bear skins.” At each step, we are attempting to come up with an epic hack to make our poor computers do something nuts and save the day. All the while, we are interfacing with external clients and trying to come across as “logically” as we can.
We know we’ll never single-handedly invent the tricorder, but we were inspired by a great actor to help with such endeavors as best we can.
So, we’re here.
The death of Mr. Nimoy leaves us with regret due to memories of the past and ambitions of the present, but more so of the need for inspiration in the future. We’ll all be watching Star Trek in the next few days with our sons and daughters (if they put up with it), but we are left hoping for the emergence of a similar scientific motivator for our children.
RIP, Leonard Nimoy.