Eugene August Prange (July 30, 1917 – February 12, 2006)Obituary
at legacy.com, accessed 2013-05-05. was an American coding theorist, a researcher at the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory (AFCRL) in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

who "introduced many of the early fundamental ideas of algebraic coding theory" and was the first to investigate

cyclic code In coding theory, a cyclic code is a block code, where the circular shifts of each codeword gives another word that belongs to the code. They are error-correcting codes that have algebraic properties that are convenient for efficient error detecti ...

s in 1957. With

Andrew Gleason Andrew Mattei Gleason (19212008) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to widely varied areas of mathematics, including the solution of Hilbert's fifth problem, and was a leader in reform and innovation in teaching at ...

, he is the namesake of the

Gleason–Prange theorem A quadratic residue code is a type of cyclic code. Examples Examples of quadratic residue codes include the (7,4) Hamming code over GF(2), the (23,12) binary Golay code over GF(2) and the (11,6) ternary Golay code over GF(3). Constructions There ...

on the symmetries of the extended

quadratic residue code A quadratic residue code is a type of cyclic code. Examples Examples of quadratic residue codes include the (7,4) Hamming code over GF(2), the (23,12) binary Golay code over GF(2) and the (11,6) ternary Golay code over GF(3). Constructions There ...

. Prange was born in Illinois to August Prange and Eugenia Livingston.''U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Church Records, 1781-1969'' He graduated from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

and spent

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

serving his country in England as an intelligence officer. He then studied at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

before joining AFCRL.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Prange, Eugene A. 1917 births 2006 deaths University of Illinois alumni Harvard University alumni Coding theorists United States Air Force officers