Grandson of Vilna rabbis honored for scientific work

LOS ANGELES, California — Solomon Wolf Golomb, the American-Jewish son and grandson of rabbis from Vilna, Lithuania, will be one of the six recipients of the 2016 Benjamin Franklin Medal, a prestigious award presented annually for groundbreaking work in science and engineering.

Golomb, an 83-year-old professor at the University of Southern California, won the award for his work in electrical engineering, which deals with advanced mathematical formulas that find crucial applications in space and cellular communications, cryptography, missile guidance, radar, sonar and global positioning systems.

In one part of his research, Golomb’s work underlies the process called CDMA, or Code Division Multiple Access, which allows, for example, hundreds of thousands of cell phones in the same city to communicate at the same time.

Outside of his research, Golomb serves as Torah reader at campus High Holiday services and is involved in both Hillel and Chabad activities. He maintains close ties with Israel, serves on the Technion’s International Board of Governors and speaks fluent Hebrew.

Among “recreational mathematics” gamesters, Golomb is revered as a guru and, among other contributions, is the inventor of “cheskers,” a hybrid of chess and checkers.

Born in Baltimore, Golomb graduated from Johns Hopkins and Harvard and subsequently became a leader in military and space communications at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

The Franklin Medal will be awarded to Golomb and the five other recipients in April. The award is presented by the Philadelphia-based Franklin Institute, named after early American statesman and scientist Benjamin Franklin.

Given out since 1824, the Franklin Medal’s lists of previous recipients are viewed as tip sheets for future Nobel Prize winners.