Daniel Hillis does not look like someone who has just been named the recipient of one of the $1 million “Dan David Prizes,” not even remotely. Yet this is precisely what happened to this world-renowned computer scientist and entrepreneur. The award is bestowed each year at the University of Tel Aviv in Israel on a number of scientists for their scientific or technical achievements. Hillis, an unassuming and modest man, is a cutting-edge thinker who numbers among his close friends Nobel Prize winners, famous scientists and professors from the most reputable universities in the United States.

Upon closer inspection, Hillis does not even resemble a researcher, nor for that matter does he look much like an entrepreneur. Sitting opposite him as I interviewed him for the Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung in May 2002, I was reminded of an overgrown child whose mischievous and continuously smiling face has a contagious effect. One instinctively wants to share in his obviously good mood. Comfortably seated in one of the elegant leather armchairs in the VIP lounge of the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv, this eminent prize winner, who can take credit for holding no fewer than 40 patents, seems well at ease with himself and the world.

Dressed in jeans, an open-necked shirt, and sneakers, Hillis wears his thinning hair in a ponytail. He has the nonchalant air of a true genius, one of those brilliant individuals who effortlessly come up with the most ingenious ideas while relaxing at a university cafeteria. It is not difficult to picture this unpretentious man as a little boy sitting at home on his bedroom carpet tinkering with his robots. Other comparisons come to mind: Walt Disney’s Gyro Gearloose, who amused children all over the world with his impossible inventions, or Q, the mastermind of James Bond’s impossible accessories.

But Daniel Hillis is all grown up now. He is neither sitting in his playroom amusing himself with robots nor driving around in a fire engine. He is, in fact, steeped in conversation with Sydney Brenner, distinguished scientist and professor from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, who happens to be one of the other Dan David Prize laureates. The professor seems to have no problems whatsoever in taking this overgrown child quite seriously.

In fact, just about everybody takes Daniel Hillis seriously. It is not difficult to see why. Hillis was the pathbreaking designer of the legendary “Connection Machine,” the computer that incorporated and connected no fewer than 65,536 processors and was thus able to attain unprecedented computational speeds. Working on this computer, Hillis faced problems of enormous proportions, problems that had until then been considered unsolvable. This was because these 65,536 chips, which scientists had until then believed could only run on serial machines, had to be made to run in parallel. Hillis, then still a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was inspired by the architecture of the brain when he invented his Connection Machine. But, of course, there are significant differences. On the one hand, the number of chips is still many, many orders of magnitude smaller than the number of neurons in a brain. On the other hand, the speed with which the computer chips communicate with each other is many, many orders of magnitude higher than the speeds with which neurons fire. But Hillis, who had this 65,536-piece orchestra play to the beat of his conductor’s baton, knew how to overcome all hurdles. The Connection Machine turned out to be not only commercially feasible but also, conveniently, the topic of his Ph.D. thesis.

One day in 1986, Hillis, the eternal child, felt that it was time to take a break from the daily grind at Thinking Machines, the firm he had founded several years previously in order to develop the Connection Machine. Without further ado, he set off for Disney World in Orlando. Happily settled in front of Snow White’s castle, Hillis started writing his doctoral thesis. This was to become a

habit. Every day he would go to the theme park, find a quiet spot, make himself comfortable, and write chapter after chapter of his dissertation.

His pioneering ideas on parallel computing met with interest that went well beyond the academic world of computer science. It was above all the commercial world that became intrigued by this invention. Eventually, about 70 of his machines were sold. But it was not smooth sailing all the way. The intricate architecture of the Connection Machine made the task of writing dedicated software very difficult and expensive. And it is well known that without the software the hardware is worth little more than the tin and silicon it is made of. So Hillis decided to seek new avenues of innovation.

His next venture was with Walt Disney Imagineering, where he became vice president of research and development in Mickey Mouse’s parent firm, a dream come true for Hillis. Here he could live his childhood dreams to the fullest. Initially, he intended to stay for only two years, but he had so much fun developing innovative technologies for movies, carousels, and TV series that he stayed on for a full five years. However, one morning he woke up to realize that the projects he had been working on were maybe not quite as important and beneficial to mankind as he had originally hoped. Not one to dither, he quickly moved on. But he had learned an important lesson at Walt Disney Imagineering: The value of the art of storytelling for organizing and communicating information cannot be overestimated. Disney’s method of conveying information was much more efficient than the methods employed by engineers.

It is not surprising, therefore, that this is what Applied Minds, the firm Hillis subsequently founded, sets itself as one of its main tasks: conveying information to the public in such a way that it can be easily grasped. Together with a filmmaker and a team of some 30 scientists and engineers, Applied Minds is busy inventing “things.” Of course, Hillis, as CEO, cannot reveal what exactly the things are that Applied Minds eventually intends to bring to market. This is still a trade secret, he whispers. With a

mysterious smile he is only prepared to say that he no longer wants to make computers more intelligent. Now he wants to make humans smarter. Then he adds that the things his firm is working on not only must be significant in terms of what they can actually do but should also be aesthetically pleasing. On top of that they must have the potential to change the world. That’s it, plain and simple. The projects he loves most, Hillis reveals, are those that combine hardware, software, and mechanical and electronic problems. He and his firm develop ideas and will build the prototypes. The mundane tasks of production and marketing will then be left to the professionals. Modest words from the ponytailed scientist, who, incidentally, also serves as an adviser to the U.S. government.

What will he do with the prize money awarded to him by the Dan David Prize? Hillis intends to donate part of it to nonprofit organizations, the biggest chunk being ear-marked for a foundation that sponsors another one of his designs, the construction of a 10,000-year mechanical clock. Some years ago Hillis, as always nurturing the inner child in himself, played with the bizarre idea of constructing a clock that would run for at least 10,000 years and sound a gong once every millennium. The idea was to encourage people to think long term and to stretch out their sense of time, explains Hillis.

Considering the fact that our civilization is relatively young, the long-term implications of this project are astounding. Will anyone even know what a clock is in 10,000 years or, for that matter, what measuring time implies? Will someone be able to maintain the clock’s mechanism or even know how to read the instruction manual? What initially seemed a quite innocent project all of a sudden grew into an undertaking of immense proportions. The planned construction will not only highlight the technological problems that inevitably arise with such a monument but, more importantly, will force the builders and the spectators to focus on issues relating to anthropology, our cultural history, and philosophy.

The first working prototype for this mechanical clock is already up and running and on display in London’s Science Museum. Scientists and engineers completed their work on it just a few hours before midnight on December 31, 1999, with barely enough time for Hillis to actually witness the most exciting moment of its construction. He had planned to see with his own eyes how the timing mechanism jumped from 01999 to 02000. But things very nearly went horribly wrong. With only six hours to go to the historic event, one of Hillis’s colleagues noticed that the power source for the ring that displayed the centuries was inserted the wrong way. Had the error not been noticed, the most crucial moment of the first millennium of its operation would have been botched: The clock would have moved from 01999 to 02800. Feverishly, the engineers worked until literally the last minute to set things straight. Then, at the stroke of midnight, two deep peals rang out and the date indicator on the clock face changed obediently from 01999 to 02000.

Hillis is thinking of using part of his Dan David Prize money to construct a 10,000-year clock in Jerusalem. He is intrigued by the Holy City’s obvious connection to the past and to the future, but possibly even more by the challenge of adding Jewish, Muslim, and Christian calendar systems to it.

Toward the end of the interview Hillis, reverting suddenly to his student days, pulls a writing pad out of his pocket and starts scribbling an equation on to a sheet of paper. It represents a mathematical theorem that, he recounts mischievously, he was able to solve during his MIT days despite the serious doubts expressed by his professor. This professor, a world-renowned expert in combinatorial theory, had to admit that his student was right. A quarter of a century has passed since that day and Hillis, now a million-dollar prize winner seated in the VIP lounge of a luxury hotel, quietly chuckles as he recalls his success back then. The sheer enjoyment of having figured out a difficult mathematical puzzle, and having proved his professor wrong, is still written across his face today.