Solomon Wolf Golomb

Solomon W. Golomb is University Professor, Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Mathematics, Andrew and Erna Viterbi Chair in Communications at the University of Southern California. He served as Vice Provost for Research at USC from 1986 to 1989. He is a member of National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering. Additionally, he is a recipient of the National Medal of Science. He has worked on the theory of linear shift-register sequences (basic components in spread spectrum communication systems) and on prime number theory. He has also contributed to number theory (twin primes), combinatorics, error-correcting and cryptographic codes, digital communication, and academic administration. Golomb has been singled out as a major figure of coding and information theory for over four decades, specifically for his ability to apply advanced mathematics to problems in digital communications. He is best known to the general public and fans of mathematical games as the inventor of polyominoes, the inspiration for the computer game Tetris. He has specialized in problems of combinatorial analysis, number theory, coding theory and communications. He invented Cheskers and the pentominoes in 1948 and 1953 respectively. Golomb pioneered the identification of the characteristics and merits of maximum length shift register sequences, also known as pseudorandom or pseudonoise sequences, which have extensive military, industrial and consumer applications. Today, millions of cordless and cellular phones employ pseudorandom direct-sequence spread spectrum implemented with shift register sequences. His efforts made USC a center for communications research. Golomb was also the inventor of Golomb coding, a form of entropy encoding. He is a regular columnist, writing Golomb's Puzzle Column in IEEE Information Society Newsletter, and he was a frequent contributor to Scientific American's Mathematical Games column. In addition to the National Medal of Science, he has received numerous awards, including the National Security Agency's Director's Medal, the Lomonosov Medal of the Russian Academy of Science, the Kapitsa Medal of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, and the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal for his exceptional contributions to information sciences and systems. In 2011 Golomb received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.