The Viterbi algorithm

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Who

Andrew Viterbi, Italian-American engineer from a Jewish family, co-founder of Qualcomm

When

1967

Where

United States

The Viterbi algorithm efficiently decodes the most likely sequence of hidden states, and underlies mobile phones, Wi-Fi, speech recognition and DNA analysis. It was devised by Andrew Viterbi, born in Bergamo to an Italian Jewish family that fled fascism to the United States, and later a co-founder of Qualcomm.

Sources

Part of “The Gifts of the Jews” — verified Jewish contributions to the world, with sources.