Former JPL mathematician Solomon Golomb dies at 83
Solomon Golomb, a mathematician and engineering professor at USC who made key breakthroughs in digital signal design, died May 1 at his home in La Cañada Flintridge. He was 83. The cause was not disclosed.
Golomb, who worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, developed systems for making digital signals that gave very accurate range measurements. This helped researchers distinguish even very weak signals from ambient noise, allowing them to hear what their spacecraft were saying to them.
The technology, known as digital spread spectrum communications, is used in many cellphones today, and Golomb’s contributions to mathematics, especially those used in communications technologies, are so seminal that such concepts as “Golomb sequences” and “Golomb rulers” are named for him. His digital signals were the first to be successfully bounced off the moon.
Golomb was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2011 for his contributions; he also received the Franklin Institute’s 2016 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering. “He really was one of a kind,” said his colleague and friend Alan Willner, a USC engineering professor. “The consummate scholar and gentleman.”
Born May 31, 1932 in Baltimore, Golomb got a degree in mathematics from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD at Harvard. He led communications work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge before he joined USC in 1963. Besides his work in digital signals, he was known for his study of so-called tiling problems in mathematics of the type that led to creation of the computer game “Tetris.”
According to USC, Golomb’s wife, Bo, died Monday, shortly after her husband’s death. He met her in the mid-1950s; they were married for more than half a century. He is survived by his two daughters.
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