Portrait of Douglas Hofstadter

Birthday profile

Douglas Hofstadter

Douglas Hofstadter, American author and academic

Born
February 15, 1945
Age in 2026
81
Zodiac sign
Aquarius
Birth year
1945

About Douglas Hofstadter

Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American cognitive and computer scientist whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, analogy-making, strange loops, ambigrams, artificial intelligence, and discovery in mathematics and physics. His 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, and a National Book Award for Science. His 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology. To explain visually the numerous types of possible ambigrams, Hofstadter created many pieces with different constraints and symmetries. Hofstadter was also an invited panelist at the first Singularity Summit, held at Stanford in May 2006. His 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, and a National Book Award (at that time called The American Book Award) for Science.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Douglas Hofstadter timeline

  1. His 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, and a National Book Award (at that time called The American Book Award) for Science.
  2. His 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, and a National Book Award for Science.
  3. Hofstadter was also an invited panelist at the first Singularity Summit, held at Stanford in May 2006.
  4. His 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology.

The world when Douglas Hofstadter was born

Douglas Hofstadter was born in 1945. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1945

  • #1 song"Sentimental Journey" – Les Brown & Doris Day
  • Top movieThe Lost Weekend
  • Best-selling bookAnimal Farm – George Orwell

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentDetroit Tigers win the World Series
  • Top headlineWorld War II ends after atomic bombs dropped on Japan
  • Technology milestoneAtomic bomb developed and detonated (Manhattan Project)
  • Defining fadV-J Day celebrations
  • Notable inventionMicrowave oven (accidental discovery)
  • World population2.40 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt / Harry S. Truman
  • Sports championDetroit Tigers (World Series)
  • U.S. population139.9M

1945 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Douglas Hofstadter's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19452026
Gas$0.21$3.45/gal
Average home$5,900$435,000
Average income$4,100$67,500
Minimum wage$0.40$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.30$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population139.9M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.