Viterbi's contribution

What is Viterbi's claim to fame - only the Viterbi algorithm ?

Has  he invented any  other theorem or circuit or algorithm ?

He is a life fellow of ieee, right ?

What criteria is there to  promote from fellow to life fellow ?

              shankar

"kbc" <kbc32@yahoo.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:a382521e.0308072354.234834dc@posting.google.com...
> What is Viterbi's claim to fame - only the Viterbi algorithm ?
>
> Has  he invented any  other theorem or circuit or algorithm ?

well not much, a part from the CDMA modulation...
he's also co-founder of Qualcomm (thy made Eudora).

Here is an interview to Mr.Viterbi:
http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/
viterbi.html

E.

On 8 Aug 2003, kbc wrote:

> What is Viterbi's claim to fame - only the Viterbi algorithm ?
>

if "claim to fame" means "the one thing someone is most famous
for", i think this is correct.  but if you insinuate that it
is the only good thing he has contributed, then i disagree.

> Has  he invented any  other theorem or circuit or algorithm ?
>

plenty of things.  get a glimpse or two here:

  http://www.cparity.com/it/demo/welcome.htm
  http://ieeexplore.ieee.org

and do an author search on viterbi.

he made a lot of contribution to the idea of using CDMA and the
techniques required to make it to work for cellular communication.

plus, classical analysis for error performance of communication
systems, both in source coding and in channel coding.

> He is a life fellow of ieee, right ?
>

i think so.  and was fellow of ieee previously.

> What criteria is there to  promote from fellow to life fellow ?
>

i'm sure this is on the IEEE website somewhere!

julius

-- 
The most rigorous proofs will be shown by vigorous handwaving.
http://www.mit.edu/~kusuma

opinion of author is not necessarily of the institute

kbc wrote:
> 
> What is Viterbi's claim to fame - only the Viterbi algorithm ?
> 
> Has  he invented any  other theorem or circuit or algorithm ?
> 
> He is a life fellow of ieee, right ?
> 
> What criteria is there to  promote from fellow to life fellow ?
> 
>               shankar

Would you like me to teach you how to use Google? Viterbi's first name
is Andrew. Look it up.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������

KBC:

[snip]
"kbc" <kbc32@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:a382521e.0308072354.234834dc@posting.google.com...
> What is Viterbi's claim to fame - only the Viterbi algorithm ?
>
> Has  he invented any  other theorem or circuit or algorithm ?
>
> He is a life fellow of ieee, right ?
>
> What criteria is there to  promote from fellow to life fellow ?
>
>               shankar
[snip]

Andrew Viterbi has made many original contributions to communications
technology.

Unfortunately the "one" which is named after him, the so-called "Viterbi
Algorithm" is not
a unique contribution of his, indeed it is not that unique.

Dave Forney wrote an IEEE Proceeding's article which named this algorithm
the "Viterbi
Algorithm".  Andrew Viterbi never called it that!

The so-called "Viterbi Algorithm" which is a maximum likelihood sequence
estimation
algorthim is nothing more nor less than an "exhaustive search" of all
possible lattice
paths seeking the one with the maximum likelihood!  Not very subtle!
Exhaustive
search is the "dumbest" of all possible optimization methods.  This
technique of
"exhaustive search" of all possible solutions until the optimum is found is
often called
"dynamic programming".  The so-called Viterbi Algorithm is nothing more nor
less
than the "dynamic programming" or "exhaustive search" algorithm.

Nothing unique, novel or subtle about it!  Just search over all possible
solutions
and then choose the one with the least cost!

Just as with Einstein, who never won an award for "Relativity" but did win
awards
for lesser  works, Andrew Viterbi is unfortunately remembered by having his
name
attached to an algorithm which he did not invent and which was not even
novel
or unique, and this unfortunate circumstance was perpetrated by another
person
[Dave Forney] writing an article about the exhaustive search algorithm and
calling
it the Viterbi Algorthim simply because Andrew Viterbi had suggested doing
an
exhautive search!

So much for celebrity.

OTOH... any literature search will uncover the many unique contributions of
Andrew Viterbi to communications sciences!  It's just that the only one
named
for him is not that important and was not even discovered or invented by
him!

--
Peter
Consultant
Indialantic By-the-Sea, FL.

What??????  dynamic programming" = "exhaustive search" ?????

The whole idea of dynamic programming is not to perform exhaustive search!!!
and to cut down the computational load!!!
By employing dynamic programming one prunes out most of the irrelevant search
possibilities, and by doing s one reduces the exhaustive search to a relatively very
small number of paths that the trellis or other specific grid structure allows.  In
simple Trellis having N stages of K points each, instead of N^K (power) possibilities
of exhaustive search, the dynamic programming may search only N*K paths.

Not sure whether Prof. Viterbi was the first one to invent dynamic programming, but he
definitely made it very useful and applicable for communications, and developed many
systems and concept based on it.

Dr.DSP


Peter Brackett wrote:
> 
> KBC:
> 
> [snip]
> "kbc" <kbc32@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:a382521e.0308072354.234834dc@posting.google.com...
> > What is Viterbi's claim to fame - only the Viterbi algorithm ?
> >
> > Has  he invented any  other theorem or circuit or algorithm ?
> >
> > He is a life fellow of ieee, right ?
> >
> > What criteria is there to  promote from fellow to life fellow ?
> >
> >               shankar
> [snip]
> 
> Andrew Viterbi has made many original contributions to communications
> technology.
> 
> Unfortunately the "one" which is named after him, the so-called "Viterbi
> Algorithm" is not
> a unique contribution of his, indeed it is not that unique.
> 
> Dave Forney wrote an IEEE Proceeding's article which named this algorithm
> the "Viterbi
> Algorithm".  Andrew Viterbi never called it that!
> 
> The so-called "Viterbi Algorithm" which is a maximum likelihood sequence
> estimation
> algorthim is nothing more nor less than an "exhaustive search" of all
> possible lattice
> paths seeking the one with the maximum likelihood!  Not very subtle!
> Exhaustive
> search is the "dumbest" of all possible optimization methods.  This
> technique of
> "exhaustive search" of all possible solutions until the optimum is found is
> often called
> "dynamic programming".  The so-called Viterbi Algorithm is nothing more nor
> less
> than the "dynamic programming" or "exhaustive search" algorithm.
> 
> Nothing unique, novel or subtle about it!  Just search over all possible
> solutions
> and then choose the one with the least cost!
> 
> Just as with Einstein, who never won an award for "Relativity" but did win
> awards
> for lesser  works, Andrew Viterbi is unfortunately remembered by having his
> name
> attached to an algorithm which he did not invent and which was not even
> novel
> or unique, and this unfortunate circumstance was perpetrated by another
> person
> [Dave Forney] writing an article about the exhaustive search algorithm and
> calling
> it the Viterbi Algorthim simply because Andrew Viterbi had suggested doing
> an
> exhautive search!
> 
> So much for celebrity.
> 
> OTOH... any literature search will uncover the many unique contributions of
> Andrew Viterbi to communications sciences!  It's just that the only one
> named
> for him is not that important and was not even discovered or invented by
> him!
> 
> --
> Peter
> Consultant
> Indialantic By-the-Sea, FL.

"Peter Brackett" <ab4bc@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:bh1c9g$e7e$1@slb9.atl.mindspring.net...
> Just as with Einstein, who never won an award for "Relativity" but did win
> awards
> for lesser  works, > --
> Peter
> Consultant
> Indialantic By-the-Sea, FL.
>

Peter,

The example with Einstein is a bad one since the Nobel prize has an
advancement of technology requirement which is much more appropriate to his
explanation of the photoelectric effect, which is by the way what he won the
Nobel prize for. While Lorentz and Poincare did a lot for the math behind
relativity, Einstein took it much furthur than anyone else at the time and
thusly did a lot of original work. But there was no application to
technology (then) so there was no prize. So I wouldn't say he got the prize
for a lessor work, but rather for a more applicable to the rules of the
prize committee work.

Clay

>
>

Peter Brackett wrote:
> 
an interesting history, using lines so long that it is difficult to
read.

Grumpy
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������

i dont have half hour to spend on this.

what do u think is the purpose of a newsgroup ?


Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote in message news:<3F33D038.2241D50F@ieee.org>...
> kbc wrote:
> > 
> > What is Viterbi's claim to fame - only the Viterbi algorithm ?
> > 
> > Has  he invented any  other theorem or circuit or algorithm ?
> > 
> > He is a life fellow of ieee, right ?
> > 
> > What criteria is there to  promote from fellow to life fellow ?
> > 
> >               shankar
> 
> Would you like me to teach you how to use Google? Viterbi's first name
> is Andrew. Look it up.
> 
> Jerry

"Peter Brackett" <ab4bc@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:<bh1c9g$e7e$1@slb9.atl.mindspring.net>...
> KBC:
> 
> [snip]
> "kbc" <kbc32@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:a382521e.0308072354.234834dc@posting.google.com...
> > What is Viterbi's claim to fame - only the Viterbi algorithm ?
> >
> > Has  he invented any  other theorem or circuit or algorithm ?
> >
> > He is a life fellow of ieee, right ?
> >
> > What criteria is there to  promote from fellow to life fellow ?
> >
> >               shankar
> [snip]
> 
> Andrew Viterbi has made many original contributions to communications
> technology.
> 
> Unfortunately the "one" which is named after him, the so-called "Viterbi
> Algorithm" is not
> a unique contribution of his, indeed it is not that unique.
> 
> Dave Forney wrote an IEEE Proceeding's article which named this algorithm
> the "Viterbi
> Algorithm".  Andrew Viterbi never called it that!

Hi Peter,

G. David Forney,Jr, a MIT Phd, is one of the pioneers of modern
communication theory. Viterbi has to be grateful to him since he
introduced the representation of convolutional codes by trellis
diagrams, and proved the optimality of the Viterbi algorithm. I think
he also introduced the idea of concatenated convolution codes and
contributed towards serially concatenated codes(?). Turbo codes  , on
the other handhand,  has paralell concatenation with intermidiate
interleaver and gained the attention of the industry very rapidly. He
is also one of the pioneers to introduce  veterbi equalizer (not same
as decoder!!) to mitigate ISI from the fading channels.

Secondly, why you guys are not mentioning Marcov(for Hidden Marcov
Model) since
Viterbi algorithm is  a special case of HMM with simple assumptions
-is n't?

Regards,
Santosh

 


> 
> The so-called "Viterbi Algorithm" which is a maximum likelihood sequence
> estimation
> algorthim is nothing more nor less than an "exhaustive search" of all
> possible lattice
> paths seeking the one with the maximum likelihood!  Not very subtle!
> Exhaustive
> search is the "dumbest" of all possible optimization methods.  This
> technique of
> "exhaustive search" of all possible solutions until the optimum is found is
> often called
> "dynamic programming".  The so-called Viterbi Algorithm is nothing more nor
> less
> than the "dynamic programming" or "exhaustive search" algorithm.
> 
> Nothing unique, novel or subtle about it!  Just search over all possible
> solutions
> and then choose the one with the least cost!
> 
> Just as with Einstein, who never won an award for "Relativity" but did win
> awards
> for lesser  works, Andrew Viterbi is unfortunately remembered by having his
> name
> attached to an algorithm which he did not invent and which was not even
> novel
> or unique, and this unfortunate circumstance was perpetrated by another
> person
> [Dave Forney] writing an article about the exhaustive search algorithm and
> calling
> it the Viterbi Algorthim simply because Andrew Viterbi had suggested doing
> an
> exhautive search!
> 
> So much for celebrity.
> 
> OTOH... any literature search will uncover the many unique contributions of
> Andrew Viterbi to communications sciences!  It's just that the only one
> named
> for him is not that important and was not even discovered or invented by
> him!