Marcel Jules Edouard Golay (; May 3, 1902 – April 27, 1989) was a Swiss

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

, and

information theorist Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...

, who

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathemati ...

to real-world military and industrial problems. He was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

Career

Golay studied electrical engineering at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule ( Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in

Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Zürich ...

. He joined

Bell laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 1924, spending four years there. He received a Ph.D. in physics from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

in 1931. Golay then joined the

US Army Signal Corps ) , colors = Orange and white , colors_label = Corps colors , march = , mascot = , equipment = , equipment_label = ...

, eventually rising to the post of Chief Scientist. He was based mostly in

Fort Monmouth Fort Monmouth is a former installation of the Department of the Army in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The post is surrounded by the communities of Eatontown, Tinton Falls and Oceanport, New Jersey, and is located about from the Atlantic Ocean. T ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. He developed an IR "radar" based on its Golay Detector, the SCR-268T specifically designed to the detection of vessels (S/S Normandie was detected at its inaugural crossing). The SCR-268 (using Barkausen vacuum tubes) and the SCR-268T were to work together. However the 268T, only used in the Pacific theater was abandoned before the end of the war. Between 1955 and 1963, Golay was a consultant for Philco Corporation of Philadelphia, PA, and the Perkin-Elmer Corporation of Norwalk, Connecticut. In 1963, Golay joined the

Perkin-Elmer PerkinElmer, Inc., previously styled Perkin-Elmer, is an American global corporation focused in the business areas of diagnostics, life science research, food, environmental and industrial testing. Its capabilities include detection, imaging, inf ...

company full-time as senior research scientist. Golay worked on many problems, including gas chromatography and

optical spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matte ...

. It was during this period when he patented an Analysis of Images, for two-dimensional parallel data processing, and worked to develop the idea, called Golay Logic for Optical Pattern Recognition along with Kendall Preston, Philip Norgren, David Dacava and Joseph Carvalko, Jr. He remained with Perkin-Elmer for the rest of his life.

Achievements

*Discoverer of the famous

binary Binary may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1) * Binary function, a function that takes two arguments * Binary operation, a mathematical operation that ta ...

and ternary Golay codes, which are perfect

error-correcting codes In computing, telecommunication, information theory, and coding theory, an error correction code, sometimes error correcting code, (ECC) is used for controlling errors in data over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The central idea is ...

that generalize the Hamming code. They were used in the Voyager probes, and led to advances in the theory of

finite groups Finite is the opposite of infinite. It may refer to: * Finite number (disambiguation) * Finite set, a set whose cardinality (number of elements) is some natural number * Finite verb, a verb form that has a subject, usually being inflected or marke ...

. *Co-author with Abraham Savitzky of the

Savitzky–Golay filter A Savitzky–Golay filter is a digital filter that can be applied to a set of digital data points for the purpose of smoothing the data, that is, to increase the precision of the data without distorting the signal tendency. This is achieved, in ...

. *Inventor of the

Golay cell The Golay cell is a type of opto-acoustic detector mainly used for infrared spectroscopy. It consists of a gas-filled enclosure with an infrared absorbing material and a flexible diaphragm or membrane. When infrared radiation is absorbed, it heats ...

, a type of

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

detector. *He introduced

complementary sequences : ''For complementary sequences in biology, see complementarity (molecular biology). For integer sequences with complementary sets of members see Lambek–Moser theorem.'' In applied mathematics, complementary sequences (CS) are pairs of sequences ...

. Those are pairs of

binary sequence A bitstream (or bit stream), also known as binary sequence, is a sequence of bits. A bytestream is a sequence of bytes. Typically, each byte is an 8-bit quantity, and so the term octet stream is sometimes used interchangeably. An octet may ...

s whose autocorrelation functions add up to zero for all non-zero time shifts. Today they are used in various WiFi and 3G standards. *He introduced the theory of dispersion in open tubular columns (capillary columns) and demonstrated their efficacy at the Second International Symposium on Gas Chromatography at Amsterdam in 1958.

Significant bibliography

* * * *

References

External links

Bibliography of writings by and about Marcel Golay, including awards
Compiled by his daughter, Nona Golay Bloomer (2007). * Reprints of papers are in the Archives of the Science History Institute: {{DEFAULTSORT:Golay, Marcel J 1902 births 1989 deaths Swiss mathematicians 20th-century American engineers American information theorists Members of the French Academy of Sciences United States Army officers 20th-century American mathematicians University of Chicago alumni ETH Zurich alumni Swiss emigrants to the United States 20th-century Swiss engineers