In the history of technology, Ralph Merkle is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Ralph Merkle as American cryptographer and cryonicist (born 1952).
Ralph Merkle was born at Berkeley in 1952. His recorded nationality is the United States. He was educated at University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University.
The twentieth century made work collective, expensive and political, with consequences that reached well beyond the people doing it.
He worked as cryptographer, mathematician and computer scientist.
His affiliations include Georgia Tech.
His name is attached above all to devising Merkle's Puzzles, co-inventing the Merkle–Hellman knapsack cryptosystem, and inventing cryptographic hashing an. Technology is judged by adoption: an invention nobody uses is a curiosity.
His recorded fields of work are cryptography.
Recognition followed: National Inventors Hall of Fame (2011) and National Cyber Security Hall of Fame (2012).
That the work was done from the United States matters. Opportunity has never been evenly distributed, and where a person is based shapes which doors open and whose work gets seen.
Ralph Merkle is still at work, and the final assessment has not been made - the ordinary condition of a living career.
Achievements
- National Inventors Hall of Fame — 2011
- National Cyber Security Hall of Fame — 2012
- Affiliated with Georgia Tech
- Educated at University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University and Livermore High School
- Worked as cryptographer, mathematician and computer scientist
