David Harold Bailey is a distinguished American mathematician and computer scientist whose work has fundamentally altered the landscape of computational number theory. A pioneer in the field of experimental mathematics, Bailey is perhaps best known for co-discovering the Bailey-Borwein-Plouffe (BBP) formula, an algorithm that allows for the calculation of the n-th binary digit of pi without calculating the preceding digits—a feat previously thought impossible.
Born in 1948, Bailey pursued his education at Brigham Young University, where he received his B.S. in mathematics in 1972, followed by a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1976. His career spanned decades at the forefront of high-performance computing, including fourteen years at the NASA Ames Research Center and fifteen years as a Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Bailey’s most famous contribution, the BBP formula, was published in a 1997 paper co-authored with Peter Borwein and Simon Plouffe. This discovery not only revolutionized how irrational constants could be computed but also provided deep insights into the question of "normality"—whether the digits of constants like pi are statistically random. Beyond pure mathematics, Bailey has made significant strides in numerical analysis and parallel computing. He is a co-author of the NAS Benchmarks, a standard metric for assessing the performance of supercomputers, and has conducted critical research into financial mathematics, warning against "pseudo-mathematics" and statistical overfitting in financial markets.
A devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bailey actively works to bridge the gap between scientific inquiry and religious faith. He operates the website Science Meets Religion, where he advocates for the harmonization of modern science—including evolution and cosmology—with theology. He argues that scientific truth and religious truth are complementary parts of a greater whole, a perspective that resonates deeply with the transhumanist pursuit of truth through both spiritual and technological means.
