Qualcomm Co-founder Viterbi Honors Mathematician Who Impressed Tetris in Israel Lecture

San Diegans are effectively accustomed to the title Dr. Andrew Viterbi from the scientific analysis buildings bearing his household’s title on account of his philanthropy, in addition to from his co-founding of Qualcomm.

Simply final month, the College of California San Diego broke floor on the Viterbi Household Imaginative and prescient Analysis Middle, which is supported by a $50 million reward he made made in 201i.

But just lately a brand new viewers, located greater than 7,500 miles away, obtained to listen to firsthand from the famed electrical engineer who invented the Viterbi algorithm, which is utilized in most digital cell phones and digital satellite tv for pc receivers, and in various fields corresponding to information recording, voice recognition, and DNA sequence evaluation.

On Might 1, Viterbi — the Presidential Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering on the College of Southern California’s Viterbi Faculty of Engineering — gave Jerusalem School of Expertise college students a lecture on the historical past of digital communication. He delivered the lecture in honor of his late good friend and mentor Solomon Golomb, a mathematician, engineer, and professor {of electrical} engineering at USC who’s partially credited with the creation of the sport Tetris.

“Each Andrew Viterbi and Solomon Golomb loom massive on the world’s stage, however much more so and really intimately on the College of Southern California,” mentioned Alan Wilner, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Pc Engineering on the Viterbi Faculty of Engineering. “You may say that Andy and Sol have been entangled as quantum particles each personally and professionally for effectively over half a century.” 

Viterbi’s lecture in Jerusalem lined what he referred to as the three levels of digital wi-fi communication — innovation, implementation, and exploitation — and the way it has affected society for higher or worse. He centered totally on the pioneers who marked the “Preliminary Wi-fi Innovation Period” from 1800 to 1950 and the “Digital Wi-fi Implementation Period” from 1958 to 2020.  

From 1997 till 2001, Viterbi served on the President’s Info Expertise Advisory Committee. A recipient of many distinguished awards, he received the Nationwide Medal of Science underneath President George W. Bush in 2008 for the Viterbi Algorithm, in addition to for his contributions to Code Division A number of Entry, or CDMA, wi-fi expertise that remodeled the idea and apply of digital communications.

“It’s an uncommon pleasure to welcome Dr. Andrew Viterbi to the JCT campus,” mentioned Jerusalem School of Expertise President Chaim Sukenik. “The Viterbi household got here to the USA fleeing World Conflict II. Dr. Virterbi labored as an engineer and labored for firms creating thrilling new applied sciences, and he was a central a part of that.”

The connection between Viterbi and Golomb, Sukenik mentioned, is notable as a result of “they weren’t solely private pals however labored carefully collectively for a few years.”

Golomb additionally acquired the Nationwide Medical of Science, his award from President Barack Obama in 2013. USC’s Wilner famous the numerous position that Jewish id performed within the journeys of each Viterbi and Golomb, who died in 2016.

“In a postcard of USC saying Sol will obtain the Nationwide Medal of Science, I appeared carefully and noticed he wasn’t holding a technical e book however a chumash — the 5 books of Moses,” Wilner mentioned. “Sol felt a particular connection to JCT. There’s a room in USC that chronicles the Viterbi household and consists of Andy’s monumental technical achievements. Importantly, on the show for all to see is the Jewish id of the Viterbis, together with their Sephardic household historical past and Andy’s Italian Jewish historical past.

“Each Andy and Sol recall to mind the passage within the Talmud that describes the three traits that mark the DNA of the Jew — merciful, modestly bashful, and performing acts of kindness. The non-public {and professional} tales of Andy and Sol in all three classes abound.”

Right this moment, Solomon Golomb’s daughter Dr. Beatrice Golomb is head of the UC San Diego Golomb Analysis Group, which research totally different situations associated to oxidative stress and cell vitality impairments.

Solomon Golomb made a donation to JCT to carry an annual lecture in reminiscence of his father, Rabbi Elhanan Zvi Golomb. After her father’s loss of life, Beatrice Golomb re-inaugurated his donation to the Israeli educational establishment. In 2021, the lecture collection was revived and expanded to additionally honor Solomon Golomb’s reminiscence.

What precisely is Solomon Golomb’s connection to the origins of Tetris? He defined within the IEEE Transactions on Info Idea journal, “I generalized a puzzle downside about placing dominoes on a checkerboard from which a pair of reverse corners had been eliminated, and created the topic of Polyominoes.”

He later wrote the e book Polyominoes: Puzzles, Patterns, Issues, and Packings, and “a younger Russian, A. Pazhitnov, studying the Russian translation of Polyominoes, was impressed, utilizing my ‘tetromino’ shapes, to invent the pc recreation Tetris. Extra folks have heard of me from polyominoes than from the rest I’ve finished.”

Beatrice Golomb has mentioned concerning her father, “He had this reward of recognizing when mathematical issues and bodily issues bore an interrelation, and this enabled him to make lots of the advances that he made.”

Jacob Kamaras is editor and writer of San Diego Jewish World.

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