Leonard Adleman

Leonard Adleman (born December 31, 1945) is a theoretical computer scientist and professor of computer science and molecular biology at the University of Southern California. He is known for being the inventor of the RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) cryptosystem in 1977, and of DNA computing. RSA is in widespread use in security applications, including digital signatures. Adleman Small Photo. ... December 31 is the 365th day of the year (366th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1945 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Computer science (informally, CS or compsci) is, in its most general sense, the study of computation and information processing, both in hardware and in software. ... Edsger Dijkstra said: Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. ... Molecular biology is the study of biology at a molecular level. ... The University of Southern California (also known as USC), Southern Californias oldest private research university, is located in the urban center of Los Angeles, California. ... In cryptography, RSA is an algorithm for public key encryption. ... 1977 was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1977 calendar). ... DNA computing is a form of computing which uses DNA and molecular biology, instead of the traditional silicon-based computer technologies. ... This article about computer security describes how security can be achieved through design and engineering. ... Digital signatures are a method of authenticating digital information analogous to ordinary physical signatures on paper, but implemented using techniques from the field of cryptography. ...

Born in California, Adleman grew up in San Francisco, and attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his Bachelor's degree in 1968 and his Ph.D. in 1976. State nickname: The Golden State Other U.S. States Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Official languages English Area 410,000 km² (3rd)  - Land 404,298 km²  - Water 20,047 km² (4. ... This article is about the city in California. ... University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (also known as Cal, UC Berkeley, UCB, or simply Berkeley) is a public coeducational university situated in the foothills of Berkeley, California, USA to the east of San Francisco Bay, overlooking the Golden Gate. ... A bachelors degree is usually an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or major that generally lasts three or four years. ... 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. ... 1976 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ...

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 problem, an NP-Complete problem similar to the traveling salesman problem. While the solution to a seven-node instance is trivial, this paper is the first known instance of the successful use of DNA to compute an algorithm. DNA computing has been shown to have potential as a means to solve several other large-scale combinatorial search problems. 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... In the mathematical field of graph theory, a Hamiltonian path is a path in a undirected graph which visits each vertex exactly once. ... The traveling salesman problem or travelling salesman problem (TSP), also known as the traveling salesperson problem, is a problem in discrete or combinatorial optimization. ...

For his contribution to the invention of the RSA cryptosystem, Adleman was a recipient along with Ron Rivest and Adi Shamir of the 2002 ACM Turing Award, often called the Nobel Prize of Computer Science. In cryptography, RSA is an algorithm for public key encryption. ... Professor Ron Rivest Professor Ronald Linn Rivest (born 1947, Schenectady, New York) is a cryptographer, and is the Viterbi Professor of Computer Science at MITs Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. ... Adi Shamir at the CRYPTO 2003 conference. ... The A.M. Turing Award is given annually by the Association for Computing Machinery to a person selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community. ... Photographs of Nobel Prize Medals. ...

Fred Cohen, in his 1984 paper, Experiments with Computer Viruses has credited Adleman with coining the term "virus". In computer security technology, a virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents (for a complete definition: see below). ...

Adleman was the mathematical consultant on the movie Sneakers. Sneakers is a 1992 film directed by Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams) and starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, and David Strathairn. ...

He has three children Jennifer (b. 1980) Stephanie (b. 1984) and Lindsey (b. 1987)

See also: List of famous programmers, Important publications in cryptography

This is a list of programmers notable for their contributions to software, either as original author or architect, or for later additions. ... This is a list of important publications in computer science, organized by field. ...

External links

• Adleman's homepage (http://www.usc.edu/dept/molecular-science/fm-adleman.htm)
• Turing Award Citation (http://www.acm.org/awards/turing_citations/rivest-shamir-adleman.html)
• Mathematical consultant for movie Sneakers (http://www.usc.edu/dept/molecular-science/fm-sneakers.htm)