Fabrice Bellard | Generated by AI
Fabrice Bellard (born in 1972) is a highly accomplished French computer programmer and mathematician. He is renowned for his significant contributions to open-source software and for several remarkable achievements in computer science and mathematics.
Here are some of his most notable works:
- FFmpeg: He is the original author of FFmpeg, a ubiquitous free and open-source project consisting of a vast suite of libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. It’s used extensively for recording, converting, and streaming audio and video in countless applications and platforms.
- QEMU: Bellard is also the creator of QEMU, a popular open-source machine emulator and virtualizer. QEMU can emulate various processors, allowing users to run operating systems and applications designed for one architecture on a different one.
- Tiny C Compiler (TCC): He developed TCC, a very small and fast C compiler. Its ability to compile and run C code quickly has made it useful in various scenarios, including scripting and embedded systems.
- Bellard’s formula: In 1997, he discovered a new and faster formula to calculate individual digits of pi in hexadecimal representation. This formula is a variant of the Bailey–Borwein–Plouffe formula.
- World Record for Pi Calculation: In 2009, Bellard achieved a world record by calculating pi to nearly 2.7 trillion digits using a single desktop computer.
- JavaScript PC Emulator: In 2011, he created a minimal PC emulator written entirely in JavaScript, capable of running a lightweight Linux distribution in a web browser.
- Better Portable Graphics (BPG): In 2014, he proposed BPG, a new image format based on the HEVC video codec, intended as a replacement for JPEG.
- QuickJS: In 2019, he released QuickJS, a small and embeddable JavaScript engine.
- NNCP: In 2021, his neural network-based lossless data compressor, NNCP, achieved top ranking in the Large Text Compression Benchmark.
- TSAC: In April 2024, he released TSAC, an audio compression utility capable of achieving very low bitrates while maintaining reasonable audio quality.
- LZEXE: At the age of 17, he created LZEXE, the first executable file compression method for personal computers.
Beyond these major projects, Fabrice Bellard has also won the International Obfuscated C Code Contest three times for his ingenious and often incredibly compact code. He co-founded Amarisoft, a telecommunications company, in 2012.
His work demonstrates exceptional skill in low-level programming, algorithm design, and a deep understanding of computer architecture and mathematics. He is widely regarded as one of the most productive and innovative programmers of our time.