Elwyn Ralph Berlekamp

Elwyn Berlekamp is the sort of genius whose fingerprints are everywhere and whose name almost no one knows, which is exactly why he fascinates me. His work in coding theory quietly underpins the error correction that keeps our phones, networks, and storage honest, an invisible scaffolding holding up modern life. Yet the same MIT-trained Berkeley professor poured equal brilliance into combinatorial game theory, finding rigor and joy in play. Crowned with the Shannon Award and Hamming Medal, he sat at the absolute summit of information theory. He died in 2019, and I think too few people paused to thank a man who literally helped the digital world function.

Name (English)

Elwyn Ralph Berlekamp

Name (Japanese)

エルウィン・バーレカンプ

Reading

えるうぃん・ばーれかんぷ

Born

September 6, 1940 – April 9, 2019

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Dragon

Origin

Dover, Ohio, United States

Occupation

mathematician / computer scientist / university teacher

Awards & achievements

• 1991 IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 1993 Claude E. Shannon Award
• 1990 IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award
• 2013 Fellow of the American Mathematical Society

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A8%E3%83%AB%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A3%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%90%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AC%E3%82%AB%E3%83%B3%E3%83%97

Tags

• Ohio
• mathematician
• computer scientist
• university teacher

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.