Manuel Blum
Venezuelan-born computer scientist who co-invented CAPTCHA
- Age
- 88 yrs
- Birthday in 171 days
- Works listed
- 2
- Paper
- Honours
- 1
- Most recent 1995
- Profile views
- 2
- 0 followers
Manuel Blum is a Venezuelan-born American computer scientist known for foundational work in complexity theory and cryptography. With his students he co-invented CAPTCHAs, the tests that tell humans from bots. He received the Turing Award in 1995.
Biography
Early life
Blum was born in Caracas to a Jewish family and moved to the United States as a teenager. He studied electrical engineering at MIT and earned his PhD there in 1964 under Marvin Minsky.
Complexity
His axioms for measuring the difficulty of computations, published in 1967, gave complexity theory a general framework. Blum’s speedup theorem showed some problems have no fastest algorithm.
Cryptography
He made early contributions to cryptography, including the Blum Blum Shub random-number generator, methods for flipping a coin fairly over the telephone, and zero-knowledge ideas.
CAPTCHA and teaching
At Carnegie Mellon, with Luis von Ahn and others, he helped create CAPTCHA in 2000. He taught at Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon; his doctoral students include several Turing laureates. He received the Turing Award in 1995.
Timeline
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1938
Born in Caracas, Venezuela
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1964
PhD from MIT
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1967
Blum axioms for complexity
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1968
Joins UC Berkeley
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1986
Blum Blum Shub generator
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1995
Turing Award
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2000
CAPTCHA created at CMU
Notable works
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1967
A Machine-Independent Theory of the Complexity of Recursive Functions Paper
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1981
Coin Flipping by Telephone Paper
Awards and honours
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Turing Award
1995
Did you know?
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1
His students include Turing laureates Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Micali and Leonard Adleman.
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2
His wife Lenore Blum and son Avrim Blum are also noted computer scientists.
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3
CAPTCHAs are seen by millions of people every day.
Connections
Related people
Also born on 26 April
Frequently asked
Who is Manuel Blum?
Manuel Blum is a Venezuelan-born American computer scientist known for foundational work in complexity theory and cryptography. With his students he co-invented CAPTCHAs, the tests that tell humans from bots. He received the Turing Award in 1995.
How old is Manuel Blum?
Manuel Blum is 88 years old, born on 26 April 1938 in Caracas, Venezuela.
Where is Manuel Blum from?
Manuel Blum was born in Caracas, Venezuela.
What is Manuel Blum known for?
Manuel Blum is best known for Computational complexity; cryptography; CAPTCHA; Turing Award 1995.
What awards has Manuel Blum received?
Notable honours include Turing Award (1995).
References
- Manuel Blum — Wikipedia. Wikipedia. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
- Manuel Blum — Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
- Official website. www.cs.cmu.edu. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
- Manuel Blum (Q92626) — structured data. Wikidata. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
Includes material from the Wikipedia article “Manuel Blum”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. That text is available under the same licence. Learn more
External links
About this profile
- Researched by the TrackFame editorial team; reviewed by Sanjay Sokal under our editorial policy
- First published 4 November 2026
- Last updated
Cite this page
“Manuel Blum.” TrackFame, last updated 5 November 2026. https://trackfame.com/person/manuel-blum
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