A O L Atkin is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He, along with Noam Elkies, extended Schoof's algorithm to create the School-Elkies-Atkin algorithm. Together with Daniel J Bernstein, he developed the Sieve of Atkin.
He is also famed for his work on properties of the integer partition
function. A O L Atkin explains that the School-Elkies-Atkin algorithm
is used for finding the order of or calculating the number of points on
an elliptic curve over a finite field. It is primarily applied in
elliptic curve cryptography.
The contribution of professor Atkin is manifold in significantly improving the efficiency of the Schoof's algorithm. A O L Atkin emphasizes that in mathematics, the Sieve of Atkin is a modern algorithm. It helps to find all the prime numbers up to a specified integer. It is an optimized version of the ancient Sieve of Eratosthenes.
Some preliminary works are conducted by the Atkin sieve and then multiples of primes squared are marked off. In this sieve of Atkin, all remainders are modulo-sixty remainders. Here, all the numbers, as well as x and y, are positive whole numbers. Flipping an entry in the sieve list means to change the prime or nonprime markings to the opposite markings.
A O L Atkin adds that Atkin also has significant contribution towards the number theory. Here, a partition of a positive integer n is a way of writing n as a sum of positive integers. Two sums that only differ in the order of their summands are considered to be the same partition. If order matters, then the sum becomes a composition. A part is the summand in a partition. The partition function or p gives the number of partitions of n.
In September 1995, a conference was held at the University of Illinois at Chicago in honor of Professor A.O.L. Atkin. The conference dealt with the computational perspectives on Number Theory. The Mathematics Genealogy Project, the web based database, gives an academic genealogy based on dissertation supervision relations of the professors of the university including Mr. Atkin. Professor Atkin's contribution is undeniable in the history of mathematics.
A.O.L. Atkin
