Matthew Cook (born February 7, 1970) is a mathematician and computer scientist who is best known for having proved Stephen Wolfram's conjecture that the Rule 110 cellular automaton is Turing-complete.
He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois and the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program.
In 1987, Cook qualified as a member of the six-person US team to the International Mathematical Olympiad and won a bronze medal.
In 1990, Cook went to work for Wolfram Research, makers of the computer algebra system Mathematica.
Cook presented his proof at the Santa Fe Institute conference CA98 before the publishing of Wolfram's book—an action that led Wolfram Research to accuse Cook of violating his NDA and resulted in the blocking of the publication of the proof in the conference proceedings.