ANDREW J. VITERBI was awarded the 2010 IEEE Medal of Honor for his invention of the maximum-likelihood (Viterbi) decoding algorithm for convolutional (trellis) codes.
For those of us who carry cell phones, it may be of interest to know that the Viterbi algorithm is used by all four international standards for digital cellular telephony.
I had the honor of meeting him when I was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and attended one of his seminars. He was, in fact, a phenomenal lecturer, and it was his 1971 paper (Convolutional Codes and Their Performance in Communication Systems, IEEE Trans. Commun. Technol. COM-19, 751 (1971)) that piqued my interest in error-correction coding and eventually led to my dissertation.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
IT’S BEEN 60 HOURS SINCE MY CATARACT SURGERY and it’s nice to be able to see the world I’ve been living in for the last several years.
The surgery was quick (15 minutes; and I didn’t even have to take my shoes off), simple (if poking a hole in my cornea and mucking around inside is simple), and effective (when I walked out of the surgery center, I could see as well without glasses as I could see with glasses walking in).
The big surprise came as we drove home and turned into the driveway: the blue sky was really blue, and the green grass was really green (and unmowed). I could see color again ... really, really see color.
The next surprise was Friday morning – my depth perception was back. I could go up and down stairs without holding onto the bannister; and I wasn’t tripping over curbs.
I could read the newspaper, without reading glasses, and without holding the paper about 3 inches in front of my nose.
Friday my right eye, with the IOL (inter-ocular lens) implant, was about as good as the left eye, with a contact lens. Today, the right eye is better – I can see individual leaves on the trees. And better yet, I can tell when the postman has come and gone by looking at the flag on the mailbox. In the recently deceased past, I couldn’t see the mailbox from the front porch; today I can see the flag on the mailbox.
And I can park the car! One of the symptoms of poor depth perception is an inability to park straight; one tends to pull the car into the slot slightly askance. Not today – dead center in the slot, perfectly lined up with the stripes. Gee, that felt good.
One down, one to go. I can hardly wait. I’ll have to wear reading glasses, of course, especially as my distance vision continues to improve (the IOLs are single-focus). But that’s a small price to pay to be able to see ... really see ... again.
The surgery was quick (15 minutes; and I didn’t even have to take my shoes off), simple (if poking a hole in my cornea and mucking around inside is simple), and effective (when I walked out of the surgery center, I could see as well without glasses as I could see with glasses walking in).
The big surprise came as we drove home and turned into the driveway: the blue sky was really blue, and the green grass was really green (and unmowed). I could see color again ... really, really see color.
The next surprise was Friday morning – my depth perception was back. I could go up and down stairs without holding onto the bannister; and I wasn’t tripping over curbs.
I could read the newspaper, without reading glasses, and without holding the paper about 3 inches in front of my nose.
Friday my right eye, with the IOL (inter-ocular lens) implant, was about as good as the left eye, with a contact lens. Today, the right eye is better – I can see individual leaves on the trees. And better yet, I can tell when the postman has come and gone by looking at the flag on the mailbox. In the recently deceased past, I couldn’t see the mailbox from the front porch; today I can see the flag on the mailbox.
And I can park the car! One of the symptoms of poor depth perception is an inability to park straight; one tends to pull the car into the slot slightly askance. Not today – dead center in the slot, perfectly lined up with the stripes. Gee, that felt good.
One down, one to go. I can hardly wait. I’ll have to wear reading glasses, of course, especially as my distance vision continues to improve (the IOLs are single-focus). But that’s a small price to pay to be able to see ... really see ... again.
CONSUMER STAR WARS: build your own laser bug zapper.
It’s not exactly cheap, but it must certainly be satisfying.
It’s not exactly cheap, but it must certainly be satisfying.
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