Manfred R. Schroeder

Manfred Robert Schröder (born 12 July, 1926) is a German physicist, most known for his contributions to acoustics and computer graphics. He has written three books and published over 150 articles in his field.

Born in Ahlen, he studied at the University of Göttingen (1947-52), earning a vordiplom in mathematics (1951) and Dr. rer. nat. (1954) in physics. His thesis showed how small regular cavities in concert halls cause unfortunate resonances.

He joined the technical staff at Bell Labs in New Jersey (1954-) researching speech and graphics, securing forty-five patents. With Bishnu Atal he was a promotor of linear predictive coding (1967). Still affiliated with Bell, he rejoined University of Göttingen as Universitätsprofessor Physik (1969) becoming professor emeritus (1991). With Joseph Hall he developed code excited linear prediction (1972). He led a famed study of 22 concert halls worldwide, leading to a comparison method requiring no travel. He was visiting professor at University of Tokyo (1979).

Books

• Number Theory in Science and Communication: With Applications in Cryptography, Physics, Biology, Digital Information, and Computing (Springer-Verlag, 1983).
• Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws: Minutes from an Infinite Paradise (Freeman, 1991)
• Computer speech recognition, compression, synthesis (Springer-Verlag, 1985). With H. Quast and H. W. Strube
• Hundert Jahre Friedrich Hund: Ein Rückblick auf das Wirken eines bedeutenden Physikers (1996)

Awards

• 1969 First Prize at the International Computer Art Competition for his application of concepts from mathematics and physics to the creation of artistic works.
• fellow of the Acoustical Society of America
• IEEE Fellow 1971, fellow of Audio Engineering Society
• Audio Engineering Society fellow and Gold medalist (1972)
• National Academy of Engineering member
• fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences for "founding the statistical theory of wave propagation in multi-mode media and contributions to speech coding and acoustics".
• Helmholtz Medal of the German Acoustical Society
• 1975 Max Planck Society appointed foreign scientific member
• New York Academy of Sciences member 1978
• Rayleigh Medal 1984 and 1987
• ASA Gold Medal 1991 "for theoretical and practical contributions to human communication through innovative application of mathematics to speech, hearing, and concert hall acoustics".
• International Speech Communication Association Medal for Scientic Achievement 2004.