Elwyn Ralph Berlekamp

Elwyn Ralph Berlekamp (September 6, 1940 – April 9, 2019) was a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Berlekamp was widely known for his work in computer science, coding theory and combinatorial game theory. Berlekamp was the inventor of the algorithm to factor polynomials, and was one of the inventors of the Berlekamp–Welch algorithm and the Berlekamp–Massey algorithms, which are used to implement Reed–Solomon error correction. Berlekamp had also been active in investing, and ran Axcom, which became Renaissance Technologies' Medallion Fund.