Edward C. Molina


Edward Charles Dixon Molina was an American engineer, known for his contributions to teletraffic engineering.

Biography

Edward Molina was born on December 13, 1877.
After completing high school, he went to work, and was self-taught in mathematics. He began working for the Western Electric Company in 1898 at the age of 21 and entered the AT&T research department in 1901. His invention of relay translators in 1906 resulted in the panel dial systems. In his studies of telephone traffic, Molina independently rediscovered the Poisson distribution in 1908. It was briefly named in his honor among American telephone engineers until the prior art was recovered. In 1928 he was an Invited Speaker at the ICM in Bologna. Molina pioneered the use of throwdowns, which in essence were Monte Carlo simulations of telephone traffic to find optimal capacity assignments for trunk lines to central offices.
Molina taught mathematics at the Newark College of Engineering from the time of his retirement in 1944 until his death. He was awarded the Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal in 1952. He died on April 19, 1964.

Publications