USC professor, previous Medal of Science winner awarded Franklin Medal
Since 1826, recipients of the Franklin Medal — awarded annually by the Franklin Institute to recognize excellence in science and technology — have ranked pretty high among history’s newsmakers.
Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking are but a few of the visionaries whose work has been honored by the Philadelphia-based organization.
Last week, when the Franklin Institute announced the names of eight individuals who would receive the honor in 2016 for contributions in seven categories, one La Cañada Flintridge resident was on the list.
Solomon Golomb, professor of engineering and mathematics at University of Southern California and 2013 winner of the National Medal of Science, is being recognized in the category of Electrical Engineering for his pioneering work in space communications, which laid the groundwork for subsequent breakthroughs in Internet, GPS and cellphone technology.
“It is a no-brainer that he’s receiving this award,” said Yannis C. Yortsos, dean of USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering. “I think history will show he’s been one of the pioneers of the communications revolution, which changed completely the way we communicate.”
Even as a graduate student working in Harvard University’s Department of Mathematics in the 1950s, Golomb recalled his ability to see connections between different fields of study and his desire to apply the solutions of one field, like quantum mechanics, to the problems of another, like communications.
“I’ve always been motivated primarily by curiosity. I will come across a problem I simply find fascinating to think about, and sometimes that leads to a solution,” the professor said in an interview Monday. “Very often, people in different fields are really considering the same problem, but they have a different terminology.”
In 1956, Golomb came to La Cañada’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory when it was still an Army facility dedicated to improving the nation’s defense systems. He and colleagues were tasked with finding more secure means of missile guidance. But when the Russians launched Sputnik 1 on Oct. 4, 1957, the facility’s focus shifted spaceward and the team’s work on space communications began.
Arguably Golomb’s seminal contribution to the group was his analysis of shift register sequences, strings of pseudo-randomly patterned zeros and ones that could be transmitted as digital electronic messages with minimal interference to far-off receivers built to detect them.
While the mathematical technique he created is integral to the function of cellphones, GPS systems and the Internet itself, Golomb said he never could have predicted the ripple effect his work would have in time.
“Forty years ago, I don’t know anyone who anticipated the Internet, and yet now we can’t imagine a world without it,” he said.
In 1963 Golomb accepted a teaching position at USC, despite receiving similar offers from UCLA and Caltech, because he was intrigued by then-President Norman Topping’s vision for the campus and felt he could make the biggest difference there.
Today, he teaches electrical engineering for graduate-level students as well as math for senior undergraduates. Yortsos called Golomb a legend on the USC campus.
“He’s an excellent teacher — very clear, very articulate and very precise. He doesn’t give you anything that’s not necessary,” the dean added.
In April, Golomb will travel to Philadelphia with a small contingent of USC colleagues for a weeklong awards ceremony intended to pay tribute to this year’s recipients and their work.
For more information on the Franklin Medal, visit fi.edu/franklin-institute-awards.
