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History
Kenneth R. Ludwig was born in 1944 in Berkeley, California. He received his B.S. (Chemistry, 1965), M.S. (Geology, 1967) and Ph.D. (Geochemistry, 1973) degrees all from the California Institute of Technology. He worked for the U.S. Geological Survey from 1973 to 1995, when he was recruited by the BGC to found a uranium-decay dating program. Ludwig served as Director and President of BGC from 2000 to 2003. Ludwig is notable among geochronologists as being expert in both the uranium-lead and uranium-series methods.
Ken Ludwig has long served as the leader in statistical analysis of isotopic data in general and for U-Pb data in particular, from optimal data acquisition to final data reduction and statistically rigorous interpretations. Ken has patiently developed algorithms and plotting routines that have allowed thousands of isotope geochemists to better understand the power and limitations of their data. Much of this has been accomplished through his popular software package, Isoplot. Isoplot is a toolkit for data analysis and graphical presentation of isotope data, from isochrons to U-Pb and U-series Concordia plots, to calculation of weighted means. This program is in use in more than one hundred isotope laboratories for both research and teaching. His SQUID software for ion-microprobe data analysis is also widely used by the international community. Ludwig’s efforts at software distribution and improvement are legendary, largely unfunded, and have played an important role in the evolution of our science. Modern mass spectrometers can produce data with unprecedented precision, and new applications for geochronology are proliferating; now more than ever, cutting edge science relies on statistical analysis of dates and their uncertainties.
The isotope geochemistry community depends on the Isoplot and SQUID software packages, and there is great demand for their upkeep, modification, and adaption to new operating systems. In this light, and with Ken’s blessing, we have begun to develop a new system, Topsoil, to support the next generation of geochronologists.