Marcel Jules Edouard Golay (; May 3, 1902 – April 27, 1989) was a

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri *Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internati ...

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 ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate ca ...

, and information theorist, who

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathemat ...

to real-world military and industrial problems. He was born in

Neuchâtel Neuchâtel (, , ; german: Neuenburg) is the capital of the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel, situated on the shoreline of Lake Neuchâtel. Since the fusion in 2021 of the municipalities of Neuchâtel, Corcelles-Cormondrèche, Peseux, and Valangin, ...

, Switzerland.

Career

Golay studied electrical engineering at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology The Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology are two institutes of higher education in Switzerland (part of the ETH Domain): * Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland *Swiss people ...

) in

Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Zürich () i ...

. He joined

Bell laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

in 1924, spending four years there. He received a Ph.D. in physics from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

in 1931. Golay then joined the

US Army Signal Corps The United States Army Signal Corps (USASC) is a branch of the United States Army that creates and manages communications and information systems for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was established in 1860, the brainchild of Ma ...

, eventually rising to the post of Chief Scientist. He was based mostly in

Fort Monmouth Fort Monmouth is a former installation of the Department of the Army in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The post is surrounded by the communities of Eatontown, Tinton Falls and Oceanport, New Jersey, and is located about from the Atlantic Ocean. T ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York (state), New York; on the ea ...

. He developed an IR "radar" based on its

Golay Detector The Golay cell is a type of opto-acoustic detector mainly used for infrared spectroscopy. It consists of a gas-filled enclosure with an infrared absorbing material and a flexible diaphragm or membrane. When infrared radiation is absorbed, it heat ...

, the SCR-268T specifically designed to the detection of vessels (S/S Normandie was detected at its inaugural crossing). The SCR-268 (using Barkausen vacuum tubes) and the SCR-268T were to work together. However the 268T, only used in the Pacific theater was abandoned before the end of the war. Between 1955 and 1963, Golay was a consultant for Philco Corporation of Philadelphia, PA, and the Perkin-Elmer Corporation of Norwalk, Connecticut. In 1963, Golay joined the

Perkin-Elmer PerkinElmer, Inc., previously styled Perkin-Elmer, is an American global corporation focused in the business areas of diagnostics, life science research, food, environmental and industrial testing. Its capabilities include detection, imaging, inf ...

company full-time as senior research scientist. Golay worked on many problems, including

gas chromatography Gas chromatography (GC) is a common type of chromatography used in analytical chemistry for separating and analyzing compounds that can be vaporized without decomposition. Typical uses of GC include testing the purity of a particular substance, ...

and

optical spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wav ...

. It was during this period when he patented an Analysis of Images, for two-dimensional parallel data processing, and worked to develop the idea, called Golay Logic for Optical Pattern Recognition along with Kendall Preston, Philip Norgren, David Dacava and

Joseph Carvalko, Jr. Joseph Carvalko Jr. is an American technologist, academic, patent lawyer and writer. As an inventor and engineer, Carvalko has been awarded eighteen U.S. patents in various fields, including computer technology, biomedical, fuel purification, an ...

He remained with Perkin-Elmer for the rest of his life.

Achievements

*Discoverer of the famous

binary Binary may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1) * Binary function, a function that takes two arguments * Binary operation, a mathematical operation that ta ...

and

ternary Ternary (from Latin ''ternarius'') or trinary is an adjective meaning "composed of three items". It can refer to: Mathematics and logic * Ternary numeral system, a base-3 counting system ** Balanced ternary, a positional numeral system, usef ...

Golay codes, which are perfect error-correcting codes that generalize the

Hamming code In computer science and telecommunication, Hamming codes are a family of linear error-correcting codes. Hamming codes can detect one-bit and two-bit errors, or correct one-bit errors without detection of uncorrected errors. By contrast, the s ...

. They were used in the

Voyager Voyager may refer to: Computing and communications * LG Voyager, a mobile phone model manufactured by LG Electronics * NCR Voyager, a computer platform produced by NCR Corporation * Voyager (computer worm), a computer worm affecting Oracle ...

probes, and led to advances in the theory of

finite groups Finite is the opposite of infinite. It may refer to: * Finite number (disambiguation) * Finite set, a set whose cardinality (number of elements) is some natural number * Finite verb Traditionally, a finite verb (from la, fīnītus, past partici ...

. *Co-author with

Abraham Savitzky Abraham Savitzky (May 29, 1919 in New York City – February 5, 1999 in Naples, Florida) was an American analytical chemist. Biography Savitzky received his bachelor's degree from the New York State College for Teachers (now University at Albany, ...

of the Savitzky–Golay filter. *Inventor of the Golay cell, a type of

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from aroun ...

detector. *He introduced complementary sequences. Those are pairs of

binary sequence A bitstream (or bit stream), also known as binary sequence, is a sequence of bits. A bytestream is a sequence of bytes. Typically, each byte is an 8-bit quantity, and so the term octet stream is sometimes used interchangeably. An octet may ...

s whose autocorrelation functions add up to zero for all non-zero time shifts. Today they are used in various WiFi and 3G standards. *He introduced the theory of dispersion in open tubular columns (capillary columns) and demonstrated their efficacy at the Second International Symposium on Gas Chromatography at Amsterdam in 1958.

Significant bibliography

* * * *

References

External links

Bibliography of writings by and about Marcel Golay, including awards
Compiled by his daughter, Nona Golay Bloomer (2007). * Reprints of papers are in the Archives of the Science History Institute: {{DEFAULTSORT:Golay, Marcel J 1902 births 1989 deaths Swiss mathematicians 20th-century American engineers American information theorists Members of the French Academy of Sciences United States Army officers 20th-century American mathematicians University of Chicago alumni ETH Zurich alumni Swiss emigrants to the United States 20th-century Swiss engineers