computer science

Leonard Adleman

Leonard Adleman is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Leonard Adleman rather than just read about it. In short: Leonard Max Adleman (born December 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist. He is one of the creators of the RSA encryption algorithm, for which he received the 2002 Turing Award.

Key takeaways

Leonard Adleman belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Leonard Adleman to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Leonard Adleman from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Leonard Max Adleman (born December 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist. He is one of the creators of the RSA encryption algorithm, for which he received the 2002 Turing Award. He is also known for the creation of the field of DNA computing and coining the term computer virus.

Biography Leonard M. Adleman was born to a Jewish family in California. His family had originally immigrated to the United States from modern-day Belarus, from the Minsk area. He grew up in San Francisco and attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his B.A. degree in mathematics in 1968 and his Ph.D. degree in EECS in 1976. He was also the mathematical consultant on the movie Sneakers. In 1996, he became a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the theory of computation and cryptography. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Adleman is also an amateur boxer and has sparred with James Toney.

Discovery 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 travelling 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. Adleman is widely referred to as the Father of DNA Computing. In 2002, he and his research group managed to solve a 'nontrivial' problem using DNA computation. Specifically, they solved a 20-variable SAT problem having more than 1 million potential solutions. They did it like the one Adleman used in his seminal 1994 paper. First, a mixture of DNA strands logically representative of the problem's solution space was synthesized. This mixture was then operated algorithmically using biochemical techniques to winnow out the 'incorrect' strands, leaving behind only those strands that 'satisfied' the problem. Analysis of the nucleotide sequence of these remaining strands revealed 'correct' solutions to the original problem. He is one of the original discoverers of the Adleman–Pomerance–Rumely primality test. Fred Cohen, in his 1984 paper, Experiments with Computer Viruses credited Adleman with coining the term "computer virus". As of 2017, Adleman is working on the mathematical theory of Strata. He is a Computer Science professor at the University of Southern California.

Awards For his contribution to the invention of the RSA cryptosystem, Adleman, along with Ron Rivest and Adi Shamir, has been a recipient of the 1996 Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award and the 2002 Turing Award, often called the Nobel Prize of Computer Science. Adleman was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006 and a 2021 ACM Fellow.

See also List of famous programmers List of pioneers in computer science

References

External links

Adleman's homepage Turing Award Citation Mathematical consultant for movie Sneakers Leonard Adleman at the Mathematics Genealogy Project

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Leonard Adleman

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Leonard Adleman claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Leonard Adleman before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Leonard Adleman ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Leonard Adleman

In research: Leonard Adleman appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Leonard Adleman in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Leonard Adleman is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1945 births, 20th-century American science writers, 20th-century American scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Leonard Adleman outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Leonard Adleman in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Leonard Adleman means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Leonard Adleman out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Leonard Adleman in simple terms?

Leonard Max Adleman (born December 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist. He is one of the creators of the RSA encryption algorithm, for which he received the 2002 Turing Award.

Why does Leonard Adleman matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Leonard Adleman?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Leonard Adleman.