How Great was Lotfi Zadeh?: A Fuzzy Tribute to an Influential Figure in Computing
Lotfi Zadeh, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, whose theory of fuzzy logic and fuzzy sets significantly influenced the science and industry of computers, passed away last month at his home in Berkeley, California.
A member of IEEE since 1947, Zadeh was awarded the IEEE Certificate of Appreciation in 1988, the Richard W. Hamming Medal “for seminal contributions to information science and systems, including the conceptualization of fuzzy sets” in 1992, and the IEEE Medal of Honor “for pioneering development of fuzzy logic and its many diverse applications” in 1995. Between 1998 and 2000, he was a Distinguished Visitor, speaking on topics, such as “The Roles of Soft Computing and Fuzzy Logic in the Conception, Design, and Deployment of Intelligent Systems,” and “From Computing with Numbers to Computing with Words.” Continue…