Eugene August Prange (July 30, 1917 – February 12, 2006)Obituary
at legacy.com, accessed 2013-05-05. was an American coding theorist, a researcher at the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory in

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

who "introduced many of the early fundamental ideas of algebraic coding theory" and was the first to investigate

cyclic code In coding theory, a cyclic code is a block code, where the circular shifts of each codeword gives another word that belongs to the code. They are error-correcting codes that have algebraic properties that are convenient for efficient error detecti ...

s in 1957. With

Andrew Gleason Andrew Mattei Gleason (19212008) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to widely varied areas of mathematics, including the solution of Hilbert's fifth problem, and was a leader in reform and innovation in teaching at ...

, he is the namesake of the

Gleason–Prange theorem A quadratic residue code is a type of cyclic code. Examples Examples of quadratic residue codes include the (7,4) Hamming code over GF(2), the (23,12) binary Golay code over GF(2) and the (11,6) ternary Golay code over GF(3). Constructions There ...

on the symmetries of the extended quadratic residue code. Prange was born in Illinois to August Prange and Eugenia Livingston.''U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Church Records, 1781-1969'' He graduated from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

and spent

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

serving his country in England as an intelligence officer. He then studied at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

before joining AFCRL.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Prange, Eugene A. 1917 births 2006 deaths University of Illinois alumni Harvard University alumni Coding theorists United States Air Force officers