Samuel Standfield Wagstaff Jr. (born 21 February 1945) is an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

and

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

, whose research interests are in the areas of

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of Adversary (cryptography), ...

, parallel computation, and analysis of

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

s, especially number theoretic algorithms. He is currently a professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

and

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

who coordinates the Cunningham project, a project to factor numbers of the form ''b''^''n'' ± 1, since 1983. He has authored/coauthored over 50 research papers and four books. He has an Erdős number of 1. Wagstaff received his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

in 1966 from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. His doctoral dissertation was titled, On Infinite Matroids,

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1970 from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

. Wagstaff was one of the founding faculty of Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security ( CERIAS) at Purdue, and its precursor, the Computer Operations, Audit, and Security Technology (

COAST A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...

) Laboratory.

Selected publications

* with John Brillhart, D. H. Lehmer, John L. Selfridge, Bryant Tuckerman: ''Factorization of'' ''bⁿ'' ± 1, ''b'' = 2,3,5,6,7,10,11,12 ''up to high powers'', American Mathematical Society, 1983, 3rd edition 2002 as electronic book
Online text
* * *
Wagstaff ''The Cunningham Project'', Fields Institute, pdf file
* * *

References

External links

Cunningham project websiteCERIAS WWW siteArchival COAST WWW site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wagstaff, Samuel S. Jr. Number theorists Cornell University alumni 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Living people 1945 births Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni