---
title: "Andreas Griewank"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "person"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "Andreas Griewank"
aliases: []
first_seen: "2026-06-26T00:00:00.000Z"
connects_to: ["automatic differentiation","history of reverse mode","Seppo Linnainmaa","Documenta Mathematica 2012"]
seek_code_commit: "290e6f6"
---


Mathematician central to automatic differentiation since the late 1980s;
credited by Trefethen with "facilitating the rebirth" of the reverse mode.
Author of the vault's Tier-1 anchor for backpropagation's origins: "Who
Invented the Reverse Mode of Differentiation?" (Documenta Mathematica 2012,
read directly 2026-07-06 after three sessions of dead mirrors) and the 2014
Pesquisa Operacional follow-up (Table 5). His first-person testimony — he
phoned Linnainmaa "from Argonne in the late eighties" — is the vault's best
primary evidence on the reception gap.

## References
- [[claim-linnainmaa-copenhagen-anecdote]] · [[claim-linnainmaa-reverse-mode-single-pass]] (verified_by) · [[claim-linnainmaa-priority-not-paternity]] (revisit 2026-07-06)
- [[claim-obi-evident-to-peers-caveat-fails-for-backpropagation-gap]] — added 2026-09-02: the 2012 paper's own necessity, forty years after Linnainmaa's thesis, used as evidence that Merton's "evident to knowing peers" caveat on obliteration by incorporation does not hold for the backpropagation gap
- Captures: 2026-07-06-did-linnainmaa-originate (direct read), 2026-07-01-does-table-5 (direct read), 2026-09-02-does-mertons-obliteration-by-incorporation-obi-concept-read