| John Mccarthy (computer Scientist) |
Article Index for John Mccarthy |
Website Links For John |
Information AboutJohn Mccarthy (computer Scientist) |
|
McCarthy championed expressing knowledge declaratively in Mathematical Logic for Artificial Intelligence. An alternative school of thought emerged at MIT and elsewhere proposing the "procedural embedding of knowledge" using high level plans, assertions, and goals first in Planner and later in the Scientific Community Metaphor . The resulting controversy is still ongoing and the subject matter of research. McCarthy invented the Lisp Programming Language and published its design in ''Communications of the ACM'' in 1960 . He helped to motivate the creation of Project MAC at MIT , but left MIT for Stanford University in 1962 , where he helped set up the Stanford AI Laboratory , for many years a friendly rival to Project MAC. In 1961 , he was the first to publicly suggest (in a speech given to celebrate MIT's centennial) that computer Time-sharing technology might lead to a future in which computing power and even specific applications could be sold through the Utility business model (like Water or Electricity ). This idea of a computer or information utility was very popular in the late 1960s, but faded by the mid-1970s as it became clear that the hardware, software and telecommunications technologies of the time were simply not ready. However, since 2000 , the idea has resurfaced in new forms. See Application Service Provider . McCarthy received his B.S. in Mathematics from the California Institute Of Technology in 1948 and his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Princeton University in 1951 . After short-term appointments at Princeton, Stanford, Dartmouth , and MIT, he became a full Professor at Stanford in 1962, where he remained until his retirement at the end of 2000. He is now a Professor Emeritus. John McCarthy often comments on world affairs on the Usenet forums. Some of his ideas can be found in his sustainability web page , which is "aimed at showing that human material progress is desirable and sustainable". SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS |
|
|