Abraham Lempel | |
|---|---|
אברהם למפל | |
 Lempel in 2007 | |
| Born | (1936-02-10)10 February 1936 |
| Died | 4 February 2023(2023-02-04) (aged 86) |
| Known for | LZ77 andLZ78 compression algorithms |
| Awards | Paris Kanellakis Award (1997) IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal (2007) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Information theory |
| Institutions | Technion - Israel Institute of Technology |
Abraham Lempel (Hebrew:אברהם למפל; 10 February 1936 – 4 February 2023)[1] was an Israelicomputer scientist and one of the fathers of theLZ family oflossless data compressionalgorithms.
Lempel was born on 10 February 1936 inLwów, Poland (nowLviv, Ukraine).[2] He studied atTechnion - Israel Institute of Technology, and received aB.Sc. in 1963, anM.Sc. in 1965, and aD.Sc. in 1967. Since 1977 he held the title of full professor, and was a professor emeritus at Technion.
His historically-important works start with the presentation of theLZ77 algorithm in a paper entitled "A Universal Algorithm for Sequential Data Compression" in theIEEE Transactions on Information Theory (May 1977), co-authored byJacob Ziv.
Lempel was the recipient of the 1998 Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation from theIEEE Information Theory Society;[3] and the 2007IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal for "pioneering work in data compression, especially the Lempel-Ziv algorithm".[4]
Lempel foundedHP Labs—Israel in 1994, and served as its director until October 2007.
Lempel died on 4 February 2023, at age 86.
TheLZ77 and LZ78 algorithms authored by Lempel andJacob Ziv have led to a number of derivative works, including theLempel–Ziv–Welch algorithm, used in theGIF image format, and theLempel-Ziv-Markov chain algorithm, used in the7-Zip andxz compressors. The algorithms have also been used as originally published in formats such asDEFLATE, used in thePNG image format.
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