Andrei Toom

Andrei Leonovich Toom (in Russian: Андрей Леонович Тоом), also known as André Toom, (born 1942 in Tashkent, Soviet Union) is a Russian mathematician currently living in New York City, famous for his early work in analysis of algorithms (culminating in the Toom–Cook algorithm), cellular automata (in particular Toom's rule), probability theory and lifelong interest in mathematical education. Currently, Toom is a retired professor of the statistics department at Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil.

Toom's English-language mathematics articles, published in journals such as the Journal of Statistical Physics, include "Non-Ergodic Multidimensional Systems of Automata," "Discrete Local Markov Systems," "On Critical Phenomena in Interacting Growth Systems," "Cellular Automata with Errors: Problems for Students of Probability," "Simple 1-Dimensional Systems with Super-Exponential Relaxation Time," "Tails in Harnesses," "On Percolation with Fibers or Layers," and "Non-Gibbsianness of the invariant measures of non-reversible cellular automata with totally asymmetric noise".

His English-language articles on education include "A Russian Teacher in America," "From Russia with Math," "How I Teach Word Problems," "Word problems: Applications vs. Mental Manipulatives," "Between Childhood and Mathematics: Word Problems in Mathematical Education," and the unpublished manuscript, "Wars in American Mathematical Education".

Toom was a student of Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro.

One of Toom's noteworthy works includes the Toom-Cook algorithm for multiplying large integers, which is used for numbers of intermediate size, before the asymptotically faster Schönhage–Strassen algorithm (with complexity Θ(n log n log log n)) becomes practical for bigger numbers.