DOCSLIB.ORG

The Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering Announcement Celebration The Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering University of Southern California March 2, 2004 “It’s the right time to turn a page and widen one’s horizons.” Andrew J. Viterbi 01 00 0 -1 -2 -3 - +1,+5 -1,+3 +2,-3 +3,+6 +7,-1 6 8 7 16 22 -6 4 9 18 12 20 -10 0100 01 00 00 Headline0 -1 -1 -2 -2 -2 -1 -3 -2 -2 -3 -2 -2 -3 -3 -2 -3 -3 -3 BSC +1,+5-1,+3 +2,-3 +3,+6 +7,-1 AN EXPANDING 0 6 8 7 16 22 VISION -6 4 9 8 18 -2 -1 12 20 -10 9 12 16 Viterbi School of Engineering University of Southern California Los Angeles, California 90089-1454 AWGN Channel www.usc.edu/dept/engineering/ phone: 213.740.4750 The Viterbi Algorithm fax: 213.740.8493 Revolutionizing how we communicate design: warren group | studio deluxe The Andrew & Erna Viterbi School of Engineering Ninety-nine years after the first engineering classes began on this campus, we are proudly naming our school USC’s Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering. No name could more appropriately capture the The Viterbi School is one of only four, and ingenuity and innovation that permeates this the only one in California, with two prestigious school. For Andy Viterbi is one of our own: National Science Foundation-funded Engi- a USC Ph.D., a USC Trustee, a member of the neering Research Centers. We have just become Board of Councilors, a pioneer in the global the site of the Department of Homeland spread of wireless communications and a vision- Security’s first Center of Excellence. In the ary engineer and entrepreneur who gave birth fierce competitions for all of these centers, our to the cellular technology that connects hun- school placed number one. dreds of millions of people. This wealth of leading-edge research Try to imagine a world without Andy’s enables our Ph.D. students to spread new tech- inventions, and you’d have to travel back nologies around the world. Eight hundred in time years — before cell phones, direct students are pursuing degrees through our broadcast satellite TV, deep space weather Distance Education Network, which delivers forecasting and video transmissions from the classes utilizing an innovative high-speed surface of Mars. Internet interface designed here. Our under- With their generous gift of million, the graduate curriculum is experiencing a dramatic largest ever received to name an engineering transformation. And our incoming freshmen school, Andy and his gracious wife, Erna, have have logged the highest average SAT scores at assured the future of the school with far more USC for the past two years. than the growth of our endowment. The inno- These talented young women and men 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 vative Viterbi spirit will inspire a new genera- will shape tomorrow’s world. Perhaps years age P tion of engineers and catapult The Andrew and from now, when humans are broadcasting | Erna Viterbi School of Engineering into the the weather from Mars, we may be able to trace uppermost echelon of engineering schools. the origins of those information technologies We are well on our way. For the past two to The Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of ngineering years, we have been ranked number eight out of Engineering. BOUNDLESS engineering schools by U.S. News & World On behalf of the students, staff and fac- Report and fourth among private schools. ulty, I express our deepest gratitude to Andy and With more than million in annual Erna for this gift and the boundless opportuni- research expenditures, our school consistently ties it opens for all of us. OPPORTUNITIES iterbi School of E V ranks in the top three nationally in funding per na r tenured faculty member. Currently, faculty are members of the National Academy of C. L. Max Nikias Engineering, the fourth-highest total among Dean ew and E the nation’s private universities. ndr The A Erna and Andrew Viterbi BOLD IDEAS Andrew J.Viterbi Bold ideas & an inventive spirit transform the world Communications pioneer Andrew J.Viterbi — who in earned one of the first doctorates in electrical engineering granted at the University of Southern California — has forever changed how people everywhere connect and communicate, whether from across a crowded city, between Andrew J.Viterbi – Los Angeles nations or from the infinite reaches of space. Born into an analog world, this visionary Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, and courses in digital communications and infor- and another of Dr. Viterbi’s colleagues, Leonard thinker opened the doors to the digital age with the space race was on. mation theory. However, he found that the Kleinrock, shared an interest in forming a con- the Viterbi Algorithm, a groundbreaking math- The new MIT grad and his family moved algorithms needed to decipher convolutional sulting group. With an investment of , — ematical formula for eliminating signal inter- to California, home to defense industry giants. codes — those used to improve the perform- from each man — the trio founded ference. Today, the Viterbi Algorithm is used He went to work at the California Institute ance of radios and satellite links — were too Linkabit. The company grew as it supplied soft- in all four international standards for digital cel- of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, complex and difficult to explain to students. ware for government computers and performed lular telephones, as well as in data terminals, then a center for communications and satellite His solution: create a brand new algorithm. simulations using the Viterbi Algorithm. By the digital satellite broadcast receivers and deep control systems, which soon became part At the time, only a handful of computers s, Linkabit began providing technology for space telemetry. of a new National Aeronautics and Space in the world could perform the millions of oper- defense communications satellites using very Dr. Viterbi’s lifelong interest in communi- Administration. There, he specialized in the ations required by his revolutionary algorithm. large antennas. cations began as a child, when his family fled communications technology of “spread spec- A computer capable of doing the calculations 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Italy for America in to escape the persecu- trum” systems on a team that designed the rapidly would have demanded the energy of a An expanding strategy tion of Jews. Long absences from family mem- telemetry equipment for the first successful U.S. particle accelerator. However, time would even- But the sophisticated transmission systems age P | bers instilled a desire to find ways of communi- satellite, Explorer . Faced with a challenge to tually catch up with his vision. that emerged from the Viterbi Algorithm cating across political and geographical borders. process and transmit information packets from Dr. Viterbi’s first internationally regarded had reached their technological limits. Large space as accurately and quickly as possible, book, Principles of Coherent Communications, amounts of data sent from communications Theories into action the team confronted two problems: the satel- appeared in . A second, Principles of Digi- satellites required highly efficient integrated cir- ngineering The Viterbi family first settled in New York, lite’s weak signal, caused by its long journey, and tal Communications and Coding, followed in cuits, far more sophisticated than those avail- then Boston. He entered the Massachusetts frequency changes created by rapid orbits. During this time, he remained dedicated able at the time. Dr. Viterbi and his Linkabit Institute of Technology (MIT) in , studying From this work, Dr. Viterbi developed the to his career in the UCLA School of Engineering associates came up with a breakthrough com- electronics and communications theory under topic for his Ph.D. dissertation at USC: error and Applied Science, conducting fundamental puter to accomplish the task and dubbed it a such renowned scholars as Norbert Wiener, correcting codes. research in digital communications theory and “microprocessor,” even though it was made up iterbi School of E V Claude Shannon, Bruno Rossi and Roberto publishing his findings in leading journals. of many chips. na r Fano. In , he met Erna Finci, married and Inventing a new paradigm Visionary ideas seemed to feed his entre- His renown grew as fast as the company. started a family. Dr. Viterbi’s love of new ideas in information preneurial appetite. In the spring of , In , Italy’s National Research Council In , the Cold War was underway. In theory led him first into an academic career. In Dr. Viterbi met Irwin Jacobs at a telecommuni- awarded Dr. Viterbi one of its highest academic ew and E October of that year, the Soviets launched , he joined the UCLA faculty, teaching cations conference in California. Both men, accolades, the Christopher Columbus Award. ndr The A The Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering | Page 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 ANDREW J. VITERBI Right: Andrew J.Viterbi receiving the Marconi International Fellowship Award from D. Allan Bromley, Science Advisor to the President, . Far right: Dr.Viterbi receiving decorations of the Grande Ufficiale della Repubblica from the Hon. Massimo Roscigno, Consul General of Italy, in Los Angeles, . In , Linkabit merged with M/A-COM Dr.Viterbi traveled the country as CDMA’s Over the years, he has received numerous of Boston, remaining a separate division. It champion. Soon, flagship telecommunications awards for his contributions to communica- soon produced the VSAT (Very Small Aperture companies, including Pacific Telesis, Motorola tions theory and its industrial applications, Terminal), the foundation for private satellite and AT&T, invested in the experimental tech- including the Institute of Electrical and communications networks.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Bernard M. Oliver Oral History Interview
    http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt658038wn Online items available Bernard M. Oliver Oral History Interview Daniel Hartwig Stanford University. Libraries.Department of Special Collections and University Archives Stanford, California November 2010 Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. Note This encoded finding aid is compliant with Stanford EAD Best Practice Guidelines, Version 1.0. Bernard M. Oliver Oral History SCM0111 1 Interview Overview Call Number: SCM0111 Creator: Oliver, Bernard M., 1916- Title: Bernard M. Oliver oral history interview Dates: 1985-1986 Physical Description: 0.02 Linear feet (1 folder) Summary: Transcript of an interview conducted by Arthur L. Norberg covering Oliver's early life, his education, and work experiences at Bell Laboratories and Hewlett-Packard. Subjects include television research, radar, information theory, organizational climate and objectives at both companies, Hewlett-Packard's associations with Stanford University, and Oliver's association with William Hewlett and David Packard. Language(s): The materials are in English. Repository: Department of Special Collections and University Archives Green Library 557 Escondido Mall Stanford, CA 94305-6064 Email: [email protected] Phone: (650) 725-1022 URL: http://library.stanford.edu/spc Information about Access Reproduction is prohibited. Ownership & Copyright All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California 94304-6064. Consent is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from the copyright owner.
    [Show full text]
  • Claude Elwood Shannon (1916–2001) Solomon W
    Claude Elwood Shannon (1916–2001) Solomon W. Golomb, Elwyn Berlekamp, Thomas M. Cover, Robert G. Gallager, James L. Massey, and Andrew J. Viterbi Solomon W. Golomb Done in complete isolation from the community of population geneticists, this work went unpublished While his incredibly inventive mind enriched until it appeared in 1993 in Shannon’s Collected many fields, Claude Shannon’s enduring fame will Papers [5], by which time its results were known surely rest on his 1948 work “A mathematical independently and genetics had become a very theory of communication” [7] and the ongoing rev- different subject. After his Ph.D. thesis Shannon olution in information technology it engendered. wrote nothing further about genetics, and he Shannon, born April 30, 1916, in Petoskey, Michi- expressed skepticism about attempts to expand gan, obtained bachelor’s degrees in both mathe- the domain of information theory beyond the matics and electrical engineering at the University communications area for which he created it. of Michigan in 1936. He then went to M.I.T., and Starting in 1938 Shannon worked at M.I.T. with after spending the summer of 1937 at Bell Tele- Vannevar Bush’s “differential analyzer”, the an- phone Laboratories, he wrote one of the greatest cestral analog computer. After another summer master’s theses ever, published in 1938 as “A sym- (1940) at Bell Labs, he spent the academic year bolic analysis of relay and switching circuits” [8], 1940–41 working under the famous mathemati- in which he showed that the symbolic logic of cian Hermann Weyl at the Institute for Advanced George Boole’s nineteenth century Laws of Thought Study in Princeton, where he also began thinking provided the perfect mathematical model for about recasting communications on a proper switching theory (and indeed for the subsequent mathematical foundation.
    [Show full text]
  • Marconi Society - Wikipedia
    9/23/2019 Marconi Society - Wikipedia Marconi Society The Guglielmo Marconi International Fellowship Foundation, briefly called Marconi Foundation and currently known as The Marconi Society, was established by Gioia Marconi Braga in 1974[1] to commemorate the centennial of the birth (April 24, 1874) of her father Guglielmo Marconi. The Marconi International Fellowship Council was established to honor significant contributions in science and technology, awarding the Marconi Prize and an annual $100,000 grant to a living scientist who has made advances in communication technology that benefits mankind. The Marconi Fellows are Sir Eric A. Ash (1984), Paul Baran (1991), Sir Tim Berners-Lee (2002), Claude Berrou (2005), Sergey Brin (2004), Francesco Carassa (1983), Vinton G. Cerf (1998), Andrew Chraplyvy (2009), Colin Cherry (1978), John Cioffi (2006), Arthur C. Clarke (1982), Martin Cooper (2013), Whitfield Diffie (2000), Federico Faggin (1988), James Flanagan (1992), David Forney, Jr. (1997), Robert G. Gallager (2003), Robert N. Hall (1989), Izuo Hayashi (1993), Martin Hellman (2000), Hiroshi Inose (1976), Irwin M. Jacobs (2011), Robert E. Kahn (1994) Sir Charles Kao (1985), James R. Killian (1975), Leonard Kleinrock (1986), Herwig Kogelnik (2001), Robert W. Lucky (1987), James L. Massey (1999), Robert Metcalfe (2003), Lawrence Page (2004), Yash Pal (1980), Seymour Papert (1981), Arogyaswami Paulraj (2014), David N. Payne (2008), John R. Pierce (1979), Ronald L. Rivest (2007), Arthur L. Schawlow (1977), Allan Snyder (2001), Robert Tkach (2009), Gottfried Ungerboeck (1996), Andrew Viterbi (1990), Jack Keil Wolf (2011), Jacob Ziv (1995). In 2015, the prize went to Peter T. Kirstein for bringing the internet to Europe. Since 2008, Marconi has also issued the Paul Baran Marconi Society Young Scholar Awards.
    [Show full text]
  • Channel Coding
    1 Channel Coding: The Road to Channel Capacity Daniel J. Costello, Jr., Fellow, IEEE, and G. David Forney, Jr., Fellow, IEEE Submitted to the Proceedings of the IEEE First revision, November 2006 Abstract Starting from Shannon’s celebrated 1948 channel coding theorem, we trace the evolution of channel coding from Hamming codes to capacity-approaching codes. We focus on the contributions that have led to the most significant improvements in performance vs. complexity for practical applications, particularly on the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. We discuss algebraic block codes, and why they did not prove to be the way to get to the Shannon limit. We trace the antecedents of today’s capacity-approaching codes: convolutional codes, concatenated codes, and other probabilistic coding schemes. Finally, we sketch some of the practical applications of these codes. Index Terms Channel coding, algebraic block codes, convolutional codes, concatenated codes, turbo codes, low-density parity- check codes, codes on graphs. I. INTRODUCTION The field of channel coding started with Claude Shannon’s 1948 landmark paper [1]. For the next half century, its central objective was to find practical coding schemes that could approach channel capacity (hereafter called “the Shannon limit”) on well-understood channels such as the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. This goal proved to be challenging, but not impossible. In the past decade, with the advent of turbo codes and the rebirth of low-density parity-check codes, it has finally been achieved, at least in many cases of practical interest. As Bob McEliece observed in his 2004 Shannon Lecture [2], the extraordinary efforts that were required to achieve this objective may not be fully appreciated by future historians.
    [Show full text]
  • Andrew Viterbi
    Andrew Viterbi Interview conducted by Joel West, PhD December 15, 2006 Interview conducted by Joel West, PhD on December 15, 2006 Andrew Viterbi Dr. Andrew J. Viterbi, Ph.D. serves as President of the Viterbi Group LLC and Co- founded it in 2000. Dr. Viterbi co-founded Continuous Computing Corp. and served as its Chief Technology Officer from July 1985 to July 1996. From July 1983 to April 1985, he served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Scientist of M/A-COM Inc. In July 1985, he co-founded QUALCOMM Inc., where Dr. Viterbi served as the Vice Chairman until 2000 and as the Chief Technical Officer until 1996. Under his leadership, QUALCOMM received international recognition for innovative technology in the areas of digital wireless communication systems and products based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technologies. From October 1968 to April 1985, he held various Executive positions at LINKABIT (M/A-COM LINKABIT after August 1980) and served as the President of the M/A-COM LINKABIT. In 1968, Dr. Viterbi Co-founded LINKABIT Corp., where he served as an Executive Vice President and later as the President in the early 1980's. Dr. Viterbi served as an Advisor at Avalon Ventures. He served as the Vice-Chairman of Continuous Computing Corp. since July 1985. During most of his period of service with LINKABIT, Dr. Viterbi served as the Vice-Chairman and a Director. He has been a Director of Link_A_Media Devices Corporation since August 2010. He serves as a Director of Continuous Computing Corp., Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc., QUALCOMM Flarion Technologies, Inc., The International Engineering Consortium and Samsung Semiconductor Israel R&D Center Ltd.
    [Show full text]
  • IEEE Information Theory Society Newsletter
    IEEE Information Theory Society Newsletter Vol. 63, No. 3, September 2013 Editor: Tara Javidi ISSN 1059-2362 Editorial committee: Ioannis Kontoyiannis, Giuseppe Caire, Meir Feder, Tracey Ho, Joerg Kliewer, Anand Sarwate, Andy Singer, and Sergio Verdú Annual Awards Announced The main annual awards of the • 2013 IEEE Jack Keil Wolf ISIT IEEE Information Theory Society Student Paper Awards were were announced at the 2013 ISIT selected and announced at in Istanbul this summer. the banquet of the Istanbul • The 2014 Claude E. Shannon Symposium. The winners were Award goes to János Körner. the following: He will give the Shannon Lecture at the 2014 ISIT in 1) Mohammad H. Yassaee, for Hawaii. the paper “A Technique for Deriving One-Shot Achiev - • The 2013 Claude E. Shannon ability Results in Network Award was given to Katalin János Körner Daniel Costello Information Theory”, co- Marton in Istanbul. Katalin authored with Mohammad presented her Shannon R. Aref and Amin A. Gohari Lecture on the Wednesday of the Symposium. If you wish to see her slides again or were unable to attend, a copy of 2) Mansoor I. Yousefi, for the paper “Integrable the slides have been posted on our Society website. Communication Channels and the Nonlinear Fourier Transform”, co-authored with Frank. R. Kschischang • The 2013 Aaron D. Wyner Distinguished Service Award goes to Daniel J. Costello. • Several members of our community became IEEE Fellows or received IEEE Medals, please see our web- • The 2013 IT Society Paper Award was given to Shrinivas site for more information: www.itsoc.org/honors Kudekar, Tom Richardson, and Rüdiger Urbanke for their paper “Threshold Saturation via Spatial Coupling: The Claude E.
    [Show full text]
  • Curriculum Vitae of Thomas Kailath
    Curriculum Vitae-Thomas Kailath Hitachi America Professor of Engineering, Emeritus Information Systems Laboratory, Dept. of Electrical Engineering Stanford, CA 94305-9510 USA Tel: +1-650-494-9401 Email: [email protected], [email protected] Fields of Interest: Information Theory, Communication, Computation, Control, Linear Systems, Statistical Signal Processing, VLSI systems, Semiconductor Manufacturing and Lithography. Probability Theory, Mathematical Statistics, Linear Algebra, Matrix and Operator Theory. Home page: www.stanford.edu/~tkailath Born in Poona (now Pune), India, June 7, 1935. In the US since 1957; naturalized: June 8, 1976 B.E. (Telecom.), College of Engineering, Pune, India, June 1956 S.M. (Elec. Eng.), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June, 1959 Thesis: Sampling Models for Time-Variant Filters Sc.D. (Elec. Eng.), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 1961 Thesis: Communication via Randomly Varying Channels Positions Sep 1957- Jun 1961 : Research Assistant, Research Laboratory for Electronics, MIT Oct 1961-Dec 1962 : Communications Research Group, Jet Propulsion Labs, Pasadena, CA. He also held a part-time teaching appointment at Caltech Jan 1963- Aug 1964 : Acting Associate Professor of Elec. Eng., Stanford University (on leave at UC Berkeley, Jan-Aug, 1963) Sep 1964-Jan 1968 : Associate Professor of Elec. Eng. Jan 1968- Feb 1968 : Full Professor of Elec. Eng. Feb 1988-June 2001 : First holder of the Hitachi America Professorship in Engineering July 2001- : Hitachi America Professorship in Engineering, Emeritus; recalled to active duty to continue his research and writing activities. He has also held shorter-term appointments at several institutions around the world: UC Berkeley (1963), Indian Statistical Institute (1966), Bell Labs (1969), Indian Institute of Science (1969-70, 1976, 1993, 1994, 2000, 2002), Cambridge University (1977), K.
    [Show full text]
  • Memorial Tributes: Volume 13
    THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS This PDF is available at http://nap.edu/12734 SHARE Memorial Tributes: Volume 13 DETAILS 338 pages | 6 x 9 | HARDBACK ISBN 978-0-309-14225-0 | DOI 10.17226/12734 CONTRIBUTORS GET THIS BOOK National Academy of Engineering FIND RELATED TITLES Visit the National Academies Press at NAP.edu and login or register to get: – Access to free PDF downloads of thousands of scientific reports – 10% off the price of print titles – Email or social media notifications of new titles related to your interests – Special offers and discounts Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the National Academies Press. (Request Permission) Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Memorial Tributes: Volume 13 Memorial Tributes NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING FFrontront MMatter.inddatter.indd i 33/23/10/23/10 33:40:26:40:26 PMPM Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Memorial Tributes: Volume 13 FFrontront MMatter.inddatter.indd iiii 33/23/10/23/10 33:40:27:40:27 PMPM Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Memorial Tributes: Volume 13 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Memorial Tributes Volume 13 THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS Washington, D.C. 2010 FFrontront MMatter.inddatter.indd iiiiii 33/23/10/23/10 33:40:27:40:27 PMPM Copyright National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Memorial Tributes: Volume 13 International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-14225-0 International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-14225-3 Additional copies of this publication are available from: The National Academies Press 500 Fifth Street, N.W.
    [Show full text]
  • SHANNON SYMPOSIUM and STATUE DEDICATION at UCSD
    SHANNON SYMPOSIUM and STATUE DEDICATION at UCSD At 2 PM on October 16, 2001, a statue of Claude Elwood Shannon, the Father of Information Theory who died earlier this year, will be dedicated in the lobby of the Center for Magnetic Recording Research (CMRR) at the University of California-San Diego. The bronze plaque at the base of this statue will read: CLAUDE ELWOOD SHANNON 1916-2001 Father of Information Theory His formulation of the mathematical theory of communication provided the foundation for the development of data storage and transmission systems that launched the information age. Dedicated October 16, 2001 Eugene Daub, Sculptor There is no fee for attending the dedication but if you plan to attend, please fill out that portion of the attached registration form. In conjunction with and prior to this dedication, 15 world-renowned experts on information theory will give technical presentations at a Shannon Symposium to be held in the auditorium of CMRR on October 15th and the morning of October 16th. The program for this Symposium is as follows: Monday Oct. 15th Monday Oct. 15th Tuesday Oct. 16th 9 AM to 12 PM 2 PM to 5 PM 9 AM to 12 PM Toby Berger G. David Forney Jr. Solomon Golomb Paul Siegel Edward vanderMeulen Elwyn Berlekamp Jacob Ziv Robert Lucky Shu Lin David Neuhoff Ian Blake Neal Sloane Thomas Cover Andrew Viterbi Robert McEliece If you are interested in attending the Shannon Symposium please fill out the corresponding portion of the attached registration form and mail it in as early as possible since seating is very limited.
    [Show full text]
  • Claude Shannon: His Work and Its Legacy1
    History Claude Shannon: His Work and Its Legacy1 Michelle Effros (California Institute of Technology, USA) and H. Vincent Poor (Princeton University, USA) The year 2016 marked the centennial of the birth of Claude Elwood Shannon, that singular genius whose fer- tile mind gave birth to the field of information theory. In addition to providing a source of elegant and intrigu- ing mathematical problems, this field has also had a pro- found impact on other fields of science and engineering, notably communications and computing, among many others. While the life of this remarkable man has been recounted elsewhere, in this article we seek to provide an overview of his major scientific contributions and their legacy in today’s world. This is both an enviable and an unenviable task. It is enviable, of course, because it is a wonderful story; it is unenviable because it would take volumes to give this subject its due. Nevertheless, in the hope of providing the reader with an appreciation of the extent and impact of Shannon’s major works, we shall try. To approach this task, we have divided Shannon’s work into 10 topical areas: - Channel capacity - Channel coding - Multiuser channels - Network coding - Source coding - Detection and hypothesis testing - Learning and big data - Complexity and combinatorics - Secrecy - Applications We will describe each one briefly, both in terms of Shan- non’s own contribution and in terms of how the concepts initiated by Shannon have influenced work in the inter- communication is possible even in the face of noise and vening decades. By necessity, we will take a minimalist the demonstration that a channel has an inherent maxi- approach in this discussion.
    [Show full text]
  • Andrew J. and Erna Viterbi Family Archives, 1905-20070335
    http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt7199r7h1 Online items available Finding Aid for the Andrew J. and Erna Viterbi Family Archives, 1905-20070335 A Guide to the Collection Finding aid prepared by Michael Hooks, Viterbi Family Archivist The Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California (USC) First Edition USC Libraries Special Collections Doheny Memorial Library 206 3550 Trousdale Parkway Los Angeles, California, 90089-0189 213-740-5900 [email protected] 2008 University Archives of the University of Southern California Finding Aid for the Andrew J. and Erna 0335 1 Viterbi Family Archives, 1905-20070335 Title: Andrew J. and Erna Viterbi Family Archives Date (inclusive): 1905-2007 Collection number: 0335 creator: Viterbi, Erna Finci creator: Viterbi, Andrew J. Physical Description: 20.0 Linear feet47 document cases, 1 small box, 1 oversize box35000 digital objects Location: University Archives row A Contributing Institution: USC Libraries Special Collections Doheny Memorial Library 206 3550 Trousdale Parkway Los Angeles, California, 90089-0189 Language of Material: English Language of Material: The bulk of the materials are written in English, however other languages are represented as well. These additional languages include Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, and Japanese. Conditions Governing Access note There are materials within the archives that are marked confidential or proprietary, or that contain information that is obviously confidential. Examples of the latter include letters of references and recommendations for employment, promotions, and awards; nominations for awards and honors; resumes of colleagues of Dr. Viterbi; and grade reports of students in Dr. Viterbi's classes at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, San Diego.
    [Show full text]
  • Norbert Wiener and Voices from the Past
    City Research Online City, University of London Institutional Repository Citation: Bawden, D. (2012). Norbert Wiener and voices from the past. Journal of Documentation, 68(5), This is the unspecified version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/3215/ Link to published version: Copyright: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to. Reuse: Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. City Research Online: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/ [email protected] Editorial Norbert Wiener and voices from the past Circumstances led me recently to re‐read parts of Norbert Wiener's autobiography (Wiener 1956), shortly after writing a brief account of theories of information for a forthcoming book (Bawden and Robinson 2012). What caught my attention was how the lives and work of the proponents of what has been come to be known as information theory were inter‐meshed during the late 1930s and 1940s. Wiener teaches a young Claude Shannon at MIT, but has relatively little contact with him at that stage.
    [Show full text]