National Academies Press: OpenBook

Memorial Tributes: Volume 22 (2019)

Chapter: JAMES W. COOLEY

« Previous: W. DALE COMPTON
Suggested Citation:"JAMES W. COOLEY." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×

contributions to engineering education.” He received the 2014 George E. Pake Prize “for exemplary leadership of corporate automotive R&D at a critical time for the industry and for important individual achievements in experimental solid state physics.”

Dale Compton’s work had profound impacts on fields of enormous import: manufacturing, healthcare systems engineering, and the very core of how large-scale engineering research in the United States is framed, supported, and connected to industry.

Yet, for all his accomplishments, Dale, and Jeanne, will be remembered by many for the impact they had both individually and together on their communities and their friends. They opened their home to extend a warm welcome to newcomers and supported the arts with unstinting generosity. They welcomed and mentored friends, colleagues, students, faculty, department heads, and deans. They were gracious in everything they did. And they were dedicated to each other.

Dale and Jeanne, who died September 19, 2016, are survived by their three children, Gayle (James) Prete of Chicago, Donald (Mary Gail) of Tallahassee, and Duane (Janie Dvorak) of Lyme, New Hampshire; and grandchildren Mary Rose and Harrison Compton.

Suggested Citation:"JAMES W. COOLEY." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×

Image

Suggested Citation:"JAMES W. COOLEY." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×

JAMES W. COOLEY

1926–2016

Elected in 2000

“For the creation and development of the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm for time series analysis.”

BY RONALD W. SCHAFER

JAMES WILLIAM COOLEY, a pioneer of the field of digital signal processing and long-time applied mathematician at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, died June 29, 2016, at the age of 89.

Jim was born in New York City on September 18, 1926, to Anna Fanning and William Francis Cooley. He graduated from Grover Cleveland High School, and then served in the US Army Air Corps (1944–45). Afterward, under the GI Bill, he attended Manhattan College, graduating with a BA degree in 1949 and an MA in mathematics in 1951. He received his PhD in applied mathematics from Columbia University in 1961.

From 1953 to 1956 he was a programmer for von Neumann’s machine at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and then he did quantum mechanics computations at the Courant Institute at New York University. In 1962 he joined the research staff of IBM’s Watson Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, where he remained until he retired in 1991. He then joined the University of Rhode Island as a professor of electrical engineering, teaching graduate courses and participating in signal processing research projects until he retired in 1993.

Jim Cooley will long be remembered for his central role in the disclosure, development, and dissemination of the fast Fourier transform computational algorithm (or FFT), a very

Suggested Citation:"JAMES W. COOLEY." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×

efficient method for calculating the Fourier transform of discrete data.

The 1965 publication in Mathematics of Computation of his paper “An Algorithm for the Machine Calculation of Complex Fourier Series,” coauthored with John W. Tukey, is widely accepted as the beginning of the discipline now called digital signal processing (DSP). The paper initially sparked great interest among a handful of pioneers already working on digital filters, but it soon became clear that with the Cooley-Tukey algorithm, the Fourier transform had suddenly gone from being a powerful mathematical tool for representing signals and systems to an even more powerful computational tool for analyzing recorded signals and implementing a virtually unlimited variety of signal processing operations.

Jim’s contribution was truly a milestone in the march toward today’s digital world that began in the 1960s. His NAE election citation now seems too restrictive in describing the impact of his work. Time series analysis was an application that he recognized and contributed to early on, but the FFT has enabled countless other technical accomplishments that simply would not be possible without it.

Jim was a soft-spoken and modest gentleman who often expressed surprise at the highly acclaimed reception to his work. He was always quick to point out that Richard Garwin of IBM had conveyed the basic divide-and-conquer idea to him from John Tukey and, furthermore, that a long list of other mathematicians, starting with Gauss, had understood the basic principle.

But with the rapid evolution of digital computers, the time was ripe to exploit the many orders-of-magnitude speed-up that could be achieved for large datasets and images, and it was Jim Cooley who first worked out the intricate indexing and storage allocation required to make a widely applicable program. With the publication of the Cooley-Tukey paper, the FFT was placed in the public domain and made available to anyone who could see its enormous potential to transform signal processing–based technologies.

Suggested Citation:"JAMES W. COOLEY." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×
Page 65
Suggested Citation:"JAMES W. COOLEY." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×
Page 66
Suggested Citation:"JAMES W. COOLEY." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×
Page 67
Suggested Citation:"JAMES W. COOLEY." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×
Page 68
Next: EUGENE E. COVERT »
Memorial Tributes: Volume 22 Get This Book
×
Buy Hardback | $150.00 Buy Ebook | $119.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

This is the 22nd Volume in the series Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and foreign associates. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and foreign associates, the Academy carries out the responsibilities for which it was established in 1964.

Under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering was formed as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. Members are elected on the basis of significant contributions to engineering theory and practice and to the literature of engineering or on the basis of demonstrated unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology. The National Academies share a responsibility to advise the federal government on matters of science and technology. The expertise and credibility that the National Academy of Engineering brings to that task stem directly from the abilities, interests, and achievements of our members and foreign associates, our colleagues and friends, whose special gifts we remember in this book.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!