Carl Bernard Pomerance (born 1944 in
Joplin,
Missouri
Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
) is an American
number theorist
Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Math ...
. He attended college at
Brown University and later received his
Ph.D. from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
in 1972 with a dissertation proving that any odd
perfect number
In number theory, a perfect number is a positive integer that is equal to the sum of its positive divisors, excluding the number itself. For instance, 6 has divisors 1, 2 and 3 (excluding itself), and 1 + 2 + 3 = 6, so 6 is a perfect number.
T ...
has at least seven distinct
prime factor
A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...
s. He joined the faculty at the
University of Georgia
, mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things."
, establ ...
, becoming full professor in 1982. He subsequently worked at
Lucent Technologies
Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the dives ...
for a number of years, and then became a
distinguished Professor
Distinguished Professor is an academic title given to some top tenured professors in a university, school, or department. Some distinguished professors may have endowed chairs.
In the United States
Often specific to one institution, titles such ...
at
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
.
Contributions
He has over 120 publications, including co-authorship with
Richard Crandall of ''Prime numbers: a computational perspective'' (
Springer-Verlag
Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing.
Originally founded in 1842 ...
, first edition 2001, second edition 2005
), and with
Paul Erdős.
He is the inventor of one of the
integer factorization methods, the
quadratic sieve algorithm, which was used in 1994 for the factorization of
RSA-129. He is also one of the discoverers of the
Adleman–Pomerance–Rumely primality test.
Awards and honors
He has won many teaching and research awards, including the
Chauvenet Prize
The Chauvenet Prize is the highest award for mathematical expository writing. It consists of a prize of $1,000 and a certificate, and is awarded yearly by the Mathematical Association of America in recognition of an outstanding expository article ...
in 1985,
MAA's
Deborah and Franklin Haimo Distinguished Teaching Award in 1997, and the
Levi L. Conant Prize in 2001 for "A Tale of Two Sieves".
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 ...
. He also became the
John G. Kemeny Parents Professor of Mathematics in the same year.
See also
*
Carmichael numbers
*
Ruth–Aaron pair
References
External links
Home page2001 Conant Prize an article in the
Bulletin of the AMS, vol 48:4 (2001), 418–419.
1944 births
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
Living people
Number theorists
20th-century American Jews
Brown University alumni
Harvard University alumni
Dartmouth College faculty
University of Georgia faculty
Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
Mathematicians from Missouri
21st-century American Jews
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