Word: daugman
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...time when everyone is worried about airline safety, the work of a little-known Cambridge University scientist could ease the public's fear. John Daugman's mathematical algorithms turn the human eye into a fingerprint. His process uses a camera to photograph the iris--the colored part of the eye--and creates a digital code based on its unique pattern. Daugman's system is extremely accurate; using 255 data points--vs. 70 for a fingerprint--it hasn't made a false match in six years of use. Indeed, iris scanners today are enhancing security at airports from Frankfurt, Germany...
...idea of iris recognition was first proposed by an American ophthalmologist in 1936; by the late 1980s, two Boston eye doctors gave it a shot, enlisting the help of Daugman, then a newly minted Harvard Ph.D. "At first I told them I wasn't interested," he recalls. "I told them to go and get one of those clever kids from M.I.T." But as Daugman thought about the task, he became intrigued...
Born in the U.S. to an immigrant family--his father is Latvian, his mother Swedish--Daugman, 47, credits his upbringing with opening his mind to off-beat ideas. "I liked, for example, the irregularity of the iris," he says. Irreverence, he thinks, might have helped his work. Daugman finally cracked the iris code by embracing randomness. "My system finds what it is looking for by failing to match a pattern," explains Daugman, who rarely mentions that the Queen made him a knight in 2000 for his work. If his iris system makes airports safer, he will have the thanks...
...regret the offense taken at my rhetorical excesses. But I must stand by the substance of my remarks regarding the evident erosion of intellectual standards and values at this university, as symbolized by the Kirkland House course on the Harvard football team's strategy. John G. Daugman '76 third year GSAS
...Book VI of the Republic Plato teaches us something about the difference between Greeks and barbarians. Congratulations to Master Vogt for liberating us from such a foolish conception. John G. Daugman '76 Winthrop House Resident Tutor