Vernon Willard Hughes

Willard Thompson

Complexity theory has a profound influence on the field of cryptology. The time complexity of breaking a cipher system must be significant enough to thwart any adversary from succeeding. However, with the emergence of quantum computers an adversary may have no difficulty in breaking known cipher systems. If quantum computers would exist today new mechanisms for security would need to be built. ...

Vernon Remembered

Editor's Note: The world of neuroscience lost one of its pioneers when Vernon B. Mountcastle, M.D., died January 11 in Baltimore at age 96. Often referred to as " the father of neuroscience, " Mountcastle defied early skeptics by showing how cylinders of neurons, dedicated to specific tasks, work together. This month's Cerebrum features remembrances from two colleagues influenced by Mountcastle...

Vernon W. Lippard

Vernon Mountcastle: Father of neuroscience.

The first annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience was held in 1971 in Washington, DC. Vernon Mountcastle, the first elected president of the fledgling society, planned every detail of the inaugural meeting and was at the front door to greet everyone into what would eventually become a major scientific discipline. The Society would grow rapidly as researchers in Departments of Anatomy, Ph...

Vernon Mountcastle: In Memoriam

Vernon Mountcastle, who discovered the columnar organization of the cerebral cortex, passed away on January 11, 2015 at home with his family. Mountcastle pioneered the use of microelectrode recording to study brain mechanisms of perception. He defined the field of somatosensory neuroscience, and he initiated the study of higher-order processing in parietal cortex. His contributions were recogni...