SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE
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Ask Syed Jafar about his groundbreaking research into the capacity of digital communication networks and he quickly begins talking about cake. The UCI electrical engineer and his colleagues have developed a mathematical model that shows how a concept called interference alignment can allow each user to access half a network’s capacity. Or, as Jafar would put it, instead of slicing the cake into increasingly tiny pieces, everyone gets half. More than just an analogy, the idea’s simplicity lies at the heart of what Jafar loves about his field and what he brings to UCI’s research labs and classrooms. “The idea of discovering a fundamental truth of nature, that to me is very beautiful,” says Jafar. “That’s the reason I’m attracted to information theory. Generally, what I am looking for is a statement that is short and easy to say, but captures something very profound. “When we talk about everybody getting half a cake, I see that as beautiful more than I see it as useful. It makes you think. What are the implications of such a result theoretically and what are the difficulties you would face if you tried to do this in practice? All those things are hidden behind this simple statement.”
CAKE
William Diepenbrock
Michael Kitada
SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING • UC IRVINE
39