John Mc Carthy

September 4, 1927 – October 23, 2011

Famous ArtificialIntelligence researcher and ComputerScience theorist.

His web site: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/

I hardly can begin to describe such a person, one of my personal heroes.

JohnMcCarthy "invented" the LispLanguage; he first started thinking about it in 1956. He figured out what he wanted, and started doing it, with some help from some friends. It's gotten away from him, since about 1962, but he was still the major starting force.

He was at MIT at the time, and now is a Professor of Computer Science at Stanford. -- He left for Stanford in 1962 and has been there since; he's now an emeritus. From 1965 to 1980 he directed the Stanford AI Lab, so he was a leading figure in two of the GreatResearchLabs from the heyday of AI research.

During his time at MIT he was one of the first to propose time-sharing operating systems, leading to the creation of the CompatibleTimeSharingSystem. He also coined the term "ArtificialIntelligence''".

Here's a good paper about JohnMcCarthy's influence on LispLanguage:

http://www8.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/html/lisp/mcc91.html

Here's a (rather silly) picture:

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/McCarthy_1.JPG

He seems to be a person who has humility, humor, and good sense about him. But maybe that's just my impression.

-- CorwinLightWilliams

It's not just you; he is consistently like that in person. -- DougMerritt

Recipient of 1971 TuringAward.