Leonard Adleman (born December 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist. He is one of the creators of the
RSA encryption algorithm, for which he received the 2002
Turing Award
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
, often called the
Nobel prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
of
Computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
.
He is also known for the creation of the field of
DNA computing
DNA computing is an emerging branch of unconventional computing which uses DNA, biochemistry, and molecular biology hardware, instead of the traditional electronic computing. Research and development in this area concerns theory, experiments, a ...
.
Biography
Leonard M. Adleman was born to a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
[Leonard (Len) Max Adleman 2002 Recipient of the ACM Turing Award](_blank)
Interviewed by Hugh Williams, August 18, 2016 amturing.acm.org family in
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. His family had originally immigrated to the United States from modern-day
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
, from the
Minsk
Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...
area.
He grew up in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
and attended the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, where he received his
B.A.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
degree in mathematics in 1968 and his
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
degree in
EECS in 1976.
He was also the mathematical consultant on the movie ''
Sneakers
Sneakers (also called trainers, athletic shoes, tennis shoes, gym shoes, kicks, sport shoes, flats, running shoes, or runners) are shoes primarily designed for sports or other forms of physical exercise, but which are now also widely used fo ...
''. In 1996, he became a member of the
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...
for contributions to the theory of computation and cryptography. He is also a member of 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 Nati ...
.
Adleman is also an amateur boxer and has sparred with
James Toney
James Nathaniel Toney (born August 24, 1968) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 2017. He held multiple world championships in three weight classes, including the IBF and lineal middleweight titles from 1991 to 1 ...
.
Discovery
In 1994, his paper ''Molecular Computation of Solutions To Combinatorial Problems'' described the experimental use of
DNA as a computational system. In it, he solved a seven-node instance of the
Hamiltonian Graph
In the mathematical field of graph theory, a Hamiltonian path (or traceable path) is a path in an undirected or directed graph that visits each vertex exactly once. A Hamiltonian cycle (or Hamiltonian circuit) is a cycle that visits each vertex ...
problem, an
NP-complete
In computational complexity theory, a problem is NP-complete when:
# it is a problem for which the correctness of each solution can be verified quickly (namely, in polynomial time) and a brute-force search algorithm can find a solution by tryi ...
problem similar to the
travelling salesman problem
The travelling salesman problem (also called the travelling salesperson problem or TSP) asks the following question: "Given a list of cities and the distances between each pair of cities, what is the shortest possible route that visits each cit ...
. While the solution to a seven-node instance is
trivial
Trivia is information and data that are considered to be of little value. It can be contrasted with general knowledge and common sense.
Latin Etymology
The ancient Romans used the word ''triviae'' to describe where one road split or forked ...
, this paper is the first known instance of the successful use of DNA to compute an
algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...
. DNA computing has been shown to have potential as a means to solve several other large-scale combinatorial search problems. Adleman is widely referred to as the Father of DNA Computing.
In 2002, he and his research group managed to solve a 'nontrivial' problem using DNA computation. Specifically, they solved a 20-variable
SAT
The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and scoring have changed several times; originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, it was later called the Schol ...
problem having more than 1 million potential solutions. They did it in a manner similar to the one Adleman used in his seminal 1994 paper. First, a mixture of DNA strands logically representative of the problem's solution space was synthesized. This mixture was then operated upon algorithmically using biochemical techniques to winnow out the 'incorrect' strands, leaving behind only those strands that 'satisfied' the problem. Analysis of the nucleotide sequence of these remaining strands revealed 'correct' solutions to the original problem.
He is one of the original discoverers of the
Adleman–Pomerance–Rumely primality test In computational number theory, the Adleman–Pomerance–Rumely primality test is an algorithm for determining whether a number is prime. Unlike other, more efficient algorithms for this purpose, it avoids the use of random numbers, so it is a dete ...
.
Fred Cohen
Frederick B. Cohen (born 1956) is an American computer scientist and best known as the inventor of computer virus defense techniques. He gave the definition of "computer virus". Cohen is best known for his pioneering work on computer viruses, t ...
, in his 1984 paper, ''Experiments with Computer Viruses'' credited Adleman with coining the term "
computer virus
A computer virus is a type of computer program that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code. If this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a compu ...
".
As of 2017, Adleman is working on the mathematical theory of Strata. He is a Computer Science professor at the University of Southern California.
Awards
For his contribution to the invention of the
RSA cryptosystem, Adleman, along with
Ron Rivest
Ronald Linn Rivest (; born May 6, 1947) is a cryptographer and an Institute Professor at MIT. He is a member of MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and a member of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intell ...
and
Adi Shamir
Adi Shamir ( he, עדי שמיר; born July 6, 1952) is an Israeli cryptographer. He is a co-inventor of the Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA) algorithm (along with Ron Rivest and Len Adleman), a co-inventor of the Feige–Fiat–Shamir identifi ...
, has been a recipient of the 1996
Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award The Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award is granted yearly by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to honor "specific theoretical accomplishments that have had a significant and demonstrable effect on the practice of computing". It wa ...
and the 2002
Turing Award
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
, often called the
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
of Computer Science.
Adleman was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in 2006
and a 2021
ACM Fellow
ACM or A.C.M. may refer to:
Aviation
* AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile
* Air chief marshal
* Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting
* Air cycle machine
* Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia
Computing
...
.
See also
*
List of famous programmers
*
Important publications in cryptography
References
External links
Adleman's homepageTuring Award Citation*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adleman, Leonard
American computer programmers
American science writers
American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent
1945 births
Living people
Modern cryptographers
Public-key cryptographers
Scientists from the San Francisco Bay Area
Turing Award laureates
University of Southern California faculty
Writers from San Francisco
Jewish scientists
Jewish biologists
UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery
Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
20th-century American scientists
21st-century American scientists
Computer security academics
UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni