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In 2001 when Fernando Prez was still a graduate student in particle physics, he kept bumping into walls with a popular programming language he was using called Python, as he tried to analyze an elusive theoretical phenomenon known as the quantum vacuum.

Fernando Prez developed IPython, an interactive computing environment.

He didnt know it then, but the intellectual chafing he was experiencing was about to launch him on a decade of tweaking, innovating, experimenting, integrating, testing and updating of a new computing tool the very tool he needed to propel his research forward.

He started the IPython project on the side, as he describes it, by making small tweaks to his Python setup. This afternoon hack is now an interactive computing environment that allows a programmer or researcher to run experiments and get results in real-time, and to display data in a dizzying range of ways.

One new component turns IPython into the computing equivalent of a scientists lab notebook a computational notebook environment in which scientists worldwide now crank out novel computer code and run itimmediately in their notebook environment.

They can embed into the notebook anything that a browser can show including video, sound, interactive diagrams, even YouTube presentations. All of this can then be organized, displayed and published seamlessly in one file that can be easily shared and viewed online.

Its power and versatility make IPython a potent educational tool, and one that supports collaboration internationally. The computing environment is now continually refined and expanded upon by hundreds of contributors, and is used by scientists in all disciplines and around the world in their everyday work.

IPython has transformed the way developers and scientists work and collaborate, says Prezs colleague, Josh Bloom, a professor of astronomy at Berkeley.

In recognition of the empowering research, publication and teaching toolkit he created, Prez was presented in late March with the Free Software Foundations 2012 Award for the Advancement of Free Software, presented once a year for a great contribution to the progress and development of free software.

It is exciting to see the proud Open Source software tradition at Berkeley, which began with BSD or Berkeley Unix in the 70s and continued through Spice, Ingres, NOW, and so many great projects, lives on in IPython, enabling research and industry throughout the world, said David Culler, Chair of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences.

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Free software award for wrestling a Python