Solomon Wolf Golomb ( ; May 30, 1932 – May 1, 2016) was an American mathematician, engineer, and professor of

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

, best known for his works on

mathematical games A mathematical game is a game whose rules, strategies, and outcomes are defined by clear mathematics, mathematical parameters. Often, such games have simple rules and match procedures, such as tic-tac-toe and dots and boxes. Generally, mathemati ...

. He most notably invented Cheskers (a hybrid between

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

and

checkers Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), is a group of Abstract strategy game, strategy board games for two players which involve forward movements of uniform game ...

) in 1948. He also fully described

polyomino A polyomino is a plane geometric figure formed by joining one or more equal squares edge to edge. It is a polyform whose cells are squares. It may be regarded as a finite subset of the regular square tiling. Polyominoes have been used in popu ...

es in 1953. He specialized in problems of combinatorial analysis,

number theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...

coding theory Coding theory is the study of the properties of codes and their respective fitness for specific applications. Codes are used for data compression, cryptography, error detection and correction, data transmission and computer data storage, data sto ...

, and communications. Pentomino board games, based on his work, would go on to inspire ''

Tetris ''Tetris'' () is a puzzle video game created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. In ''Tetris'', falling tetromino shapes must be neatly sorted into a pile; once a horizontal line of the game board is filled in, it disa ...

''.

Achievements

Golomb, a Baltimore City College high school graduate, received his bachelor's degree from

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

and master's and doctorate in mathematics from

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 ...

in 1957. His dissertation was "Problems in the Distribution of the Prime Numbers." While working at the

Glenn L. Martin Company The Glenn L. Martin Company, also known as The Martin Company from 1917 to 1961, was an American aircraft and aerospace industry, aerospace manufacturing company founded by aviation pioneer Glenn L. Martin. The Martin Company produced many impo ...

, he became interested in communications theory and began working on shift register sequences. He spent his Fulbright year at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo (; ) is a public university, public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation#Europe, oldest university in Norway. Originally named the Royal Frederick Univ ...

and then joined the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by Cali ...

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

, where he researched military and space communications. He joined the faculty of

USC USC may refer to: Education United States * Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Santurce, Puerto Rico * University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina ** University of South Carolina System, a state university system of South Carolina * ...

in 1963 and was awarded full tenure two years later. Golomb pioneered the identification of the characteristics and merits of maximum length shift register sequences, also known as

pseudorandom A pseudorandom sequence of numbers is one that appears to be statistically random, despite having been produced by a completely deterministic and repeatable process. Pseudorandom number generators are often used in computer programming, as tradi ...

or pseudonoise sequences, which have extensive military, industrial, and consumer applications. Today, millions of cordless and cellular phones employ pseudorandom

direct-sequence spread spectrum In telecommunications, direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) is a spread-spectrum modulation technique primarily used to reduce overall signal interference. The direct-sequence modulation makes the transmitted signal wider in bandwidth tha ...

implemented with shift register sequences. His efforts made USC a center for communications research. Golomb was the inventor of

Golomb coding Golomb coding is a lossless data compression method using a family of data compression codes invented by Solomon W. Golomb in the 1960s. Alphabets following a geometric distribution will have a Golomb code as an optimal prefix code, making ...

, a form of

entropy encoding In information theory, an entropy coding (or entropy encoding) is any lossless data compression method that attempts to approach the lower bound declared by Shannon's source coding theorem, which states that any lossless data compression method ...

. Golomb rulers, used in astronomy and data encryption, are also named for him, as is one of the main generation techniques of

Costas array In mathematics, a Costas array can be regarded geometry, geometrically as a set of ''n'' points, each at the center of a square in an ''n''×''n'' square tiling such that each row or column contains only one point, and all of the ''n''(''n''& ...

s, the Lempel-Golomb generation method. He was a regular columnist, writing Golomb's Puzzle Column in the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

Information Society Newsletter. He was also a frequent contributor to ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

s ''Mathematical Games'' column (The column did much to publicize his discoveries about polyominoes and pentominoes) and a frequent participant in Gathering 4 Gardner conferences. Among his contributions to recreational mathematics are '' Rep-tiles''. He also contributed a puzzle to each issue of the ''Johns Hopkins Magazine,'' a monthly publication of his undergraduate alma mater, for a column called "Golomb's Gambits," and was a frequent contributor to '' Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics''.

Awards

Golomb was a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

and the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. In 1985, he received the Shannon Award of the Information Theory Society of the IEEE. In 1992, he received the U.S.

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...

medal for his research. He has also received the Lomonosov Medal of the Russian Academy of Science and the Kapitsa Medal of the

Russian Academy of Natural Sciences The Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (Russian language, Russian: Российская академия естественных наук) is a Russian non-governmental organization founded on August 31 1990 in Moscow in the former Soviet Uni ...

. In 2000, he was awarded the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal for his exceptional contributions to information sciences and systems. For over four decades, he was singled out as a major figure in coding and information theory, specifically for his ability to apply advanced mathematics to problems in digital communications. In 2012, he became a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

. That same year, it was announced that he had been selected to receive the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...

. In 2014, he was elected as a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics "for contributions to coding theory, data encryption, communications, and mathematical games." In 2013, he was awarded the

2011. In 2016, he was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering "for pioneering work in space communications and the design of digital spread spectrum signals, transmissions that provide security, interference suppression, and precise location for cryptography; missile guidance; defense, space, and cellular communications; radar; sonar; and GPS."

Selected books

* * * * This book contains some previously hard-to-find works of Solomon Golomb.

References

External links

Biography of Dr. Golomb at the USC Electrical Engineering Department's website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Golomb, Solomon W. 1932 births 2016 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Combinatorial game theorists Recreational mathematicians Mathematics popularizers Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni American information theorists Johns Hopkins University alumni American number theorists University of Southern California faculty Baltimore City College alumni Tetris Chess variant inventors National Medal of Science laureates Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century American Jews Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Burials at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery Mathematicians from Maryland 21st-century American Jews Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute) laureates

Achievements

Awards

Selected books

See also

References

External links