Alan Newell

(United States 1927-1992)

Alan Newell, professor in computer science and cognitive psychology and Herbert Simon, polymath and Nobel prize laureat in economics (1978) pioneered early research in information theory at Carnegie Mellon University in the 1950s. They developed 'thinking machines' to simulate human cognition and developed a theory of information processing which formed the foundation of artificial intelligence and computer science. They designed a Logic Theory Machine, Information Processing Languages and a General Processing System with the twin goals of reproducing human thinking and thereby understanding it.

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