Neal I. Koblitz (born December 24, 1948)
is a Professor of Mathematics at the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seat ...
. He is also an
adjunct professor
An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and
the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the gener ...
with the
Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research
The Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research (CACR) is a group of industrial representatives, professors, and students at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada who work and do research in the field of cryptography.
The CACR aims ...
at the
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to "Uptown" Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also operates ...
. He is the creator of
hyperelliptic curve cryptography Hyperelliptic curve cryptography is similar to elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) insofar as the Jacobian of a hyperelliptic curve is an abelian group in which to do arithmetic, just as we use the group of points on an elliptic curve in ECC.
Defin ...
and the independent co-creator of
elliptic curve cryptography
Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) is an approach to public-key cryptography based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. ECC allows smaller keys compared to non-EC cryptography (based on plain Galois fields) to provide e ...
.
Biography
Koblitz received his
undergraduate degree
An undergraduate degree (also called first degree or simply degree) is a colloquial term for an academic degree earned by a person who has completed undergraduate courses. In the United States, it is usually offered at an institution of higher ...
from
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 ...
in 1969.
While at Harvard, he was a
Putnam Fellow
The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college students enrolled at institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada (regar ...
in 1968.
He received his Ph.D. from
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...
in 1974 under the direction of
Nick Katz
Nicholas Michael Katz (born December 7, 1943) is an American mathematician, working in arithmetic geometry, particularly on ''p''-adic methods, monodromy and moduli problems, and number theory. He is currently a professor of Mathematics at P ...
. From 1975 to 1979 he was an instructor 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 ...
. In 1979 he began working at the University of Washington.
Koblitz's 1981 article "Mathematics as Propaganda"
criticized the misuse of mathematics in the social sciences and helped motivate
Serge Lang
Serge Lang (; May 19, 1927 – September 12, 2005) was a French-American mathematician and activist who taught at Yale University for most of his career. He is known for his work in number theory and for his mathematics textbooks, including the i ...
's successful challenge to the nomination of political scientist
Samuel P. Huntington
Samuel Phillips Huntington (April 18, 1927December 24, 2008) was an American political scientist, adviser, and academic. He spent more than half a century at Harvard University, where he was director of Harvard's Center for International Affairs ...
to the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...
.
In ''
The Mathematical Intelligencer
''The Mathematical Intelligencer'' is a mathematical journal published by Springer Verlag that aims at a conversational and scholarly tone, rather than the technical and specialist tone more common among academic journals. Volumes are released qua ...
'', Koblitz,
Steven Weintraub,
and
Saunders Mac Lane
Saunders Mac Lane (4 August 1909 – 14 April 2005) was an American mathematician who co-founded category theory with Samuel Eilenberg.
Early life and education
Mac Lane was born in Norwich, Connecticut, near where his family lived in Taftvill ...
later criticized the arguments of
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American political scientist, with a Ph.D. in political science, whose work also influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His primary ...
, who had attempted to defend Huntington's work.
He co-invented
Elliptic-curve cryptography
Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) is an approach to public-key cryptography based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. ECC allows smaller keys compared to non-EC cryptography (based on plain Galois fields) to provide e ...
in 1985, with
Victor S. Miller
Victor Saul Miller (born 3 March 1947 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American mathematician as a Principal Computer Scientist in the Computer Science Laboratory of SRI International. He received his B.A. in mathematics from Columbia University in ...
and for this was awarded the Levchin Prize in 2021.
With his wife
Ann Hibner Koblitz
Ann Hibner Koblitz (born 1952) is a Professor Emerita of Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University known for her studies of the history of women in science. She is the Director of the Kovalevskaia Fund, which supports women in science ...
, he in 1985 founded the Kovalevskaia Prize, to honour women scientists in
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed Industrial sector, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is al ...
. It was financed from the royalties of Ann Hibner Koblitz's 1983 biography of
Sofia Kovalevskaia
Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (russian: link=no, Софья Васильевна Ковалевская), born Korvin-Krukovskaya ( – 10 February 1891), was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differen ...
.
Although the awardees have ranged over many fields of science, one of the 2011 winners was a Vietnamese mathematician,
Lê Thị Thanh Nhàn
Lê Thị Thanh Nhàn (born March 23, 1970)[Personal data for Lê Thị Thanh Nhàn ...](_blank)
. Koblitz is an atheist.
[Koblitz, Neal. Random Curves: Journeys of a Mathematician. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2008. Print. "For me, an atheist and an aspiring mathematician..."]
See also
*
List of University of Waterloo people
The University of Waterloo, located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, is a comprehensive public university that was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles. It has grown into an institution of more than 42,000 students, faculty, and st ...
*
Gross–Koblitz formula
In mathematics, the Gross–Koblitz formula, introduced by expresses a Gauss sum using a product of values of the p-adic gamma function
In mathematics, the -adic number system for any prime number extends the ordinary arithmetic of the ...
Selected publications
*
*
*
*
*
*
References
External links
Neal Koblitz's home page*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koblitz, Neal
1948 births
Living people
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
American atheists
Modern cryptographers
Public-key cryptographers
Putnam Fellows
Number theorists
Harvard University alumni
Princeton University alumni
University of Washington faculty