William Wesley Peterson (April 22, 1924 – May 6, 2009) was an American mathematician and computer scientist. He was best known for designing the

cyclic redundancy check A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is an error-detecting code commonly used in digital networks and storage devices to detect accidental changes to digital data. Blocks of data entering these systems get a short ''check value'' attached, based on t ...

(CRC), – The original paper on CRCs for which research he was awarded the

Japan Prize is awarded to people from all parts of the world whose "original and outstanding achievements in science and technology are recognized as having advanced the frontiers of knowledge and served the cause of peace and prosperity for mankind." The P ...

in 1999. Peterson was born on April 22, 1924, in Muskegon, Michigan and earned his Ph.D. in 1954 from the University of Michigan. Peterson was a professor of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, joining the faculty in 1964.The Newsletter of the Colleges of Arts & Sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Summer 1999, Volume 5, Number One
Retrieved November 24, 2011 He started work at IBM in 1954. He authored the publication of algebraic coding theory ''Error Correcting Codes'' in 1961. He co-authored a number of books on the topic of error correcting codes, including the revised 2nd edition of ''Error Correcting Codes'' (co-authored with Edward J. Weldon). In the early 1950s he contributed significantly to the development of

signal detection theory Detection theory or signal detection theory is a means to measure the ability to differentiate between information-bearing patterns (called stimulus in living organisms, signal in machines) and random patterns that distract from the information (ca ...

through participation in the IRE Professional Group on Information Theory. He has also done research and published in the fields of programming languages, systems programming, and networks. As well as the

in 1999, he was awarded the

Claude E. Shannon Award The Claude E. Shannon Award of the IEEE Information Theory Society was created to honor consistent and profound contributions to the field of information theory. Each Shannon Award winner is expected to present a Shannon Lecture at the following ...

in 1981, and the

IEEE Centennial Medal The IEEE Centennial Medal was a medal minted and awarded in 1984 ''to persons deserving of special recognition for extraordinary achievement'' to celebrate the Centennial of the founding of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (I ...

in 1984. In 2007, two years before Peterson's death, Intel added crc32 to the

SSE4.2 SSE4 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4) is a SIMD CPU instruction set used in the Intel Core microarchitecture and AMD K10 (K8L). It was announced on September 27, 2006, at the Fall 2006 Intel Developer Forum, with vague details in a white paper; more ...

instruction set of the x86-64 architecture. Peterson finished 16th in the 2005 Honolulu Marathon for males ages 80 to 84. He died on May 6, 2009, in Honolulu, Hawaii survived by five children from two different marriages, his wife, and several grandchildren.

References

External links

Press release announcing the award of the Japan Prize
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peterson, W. Wesley 1924 births 2009 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Detection and estimation theorists IEEE Centennial Medal laureates People from Muskegon, Michigan University of Hawaiʻi faculty University of Michigan alumni