
Lotfi Zadeh has died - zeratul
http://engineering.berkeley.edu/2017/09/remembering-lotfi-zadeh
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imgabe
When I first was going to college I was going to major in International
Affairs. The summer before my freshman year, I read a book about fuzzy logic.
(this book - [https://www.amazon.com/Fuzzy-Logic-Revolutionary-Computer-
Te...](https://www.amazon.com/Fuzzy-Logic-Revolutionary-Computer-
Technology/dp/0671875353/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505092876&sr=8-1&keywords=fuzzy+logic)
to be exact) and it so captivated me that I changed my major to electrical
engineering. RIP Lofti Zadeh, you had a major impact on the course of my life,
however indirectly.

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jnordwick
I had the pleasure of having lunch with Prof Zadeh my first year in CS right
around the corner from Soda Hall. I had my book out studying and he came over
and talked to me and it really made me appreciate the program. Not sure about
sticks out in my head so much. I think it was just the congeniality, he made
me laugh and I was stressed.

My condolences go out to his family and friends, but he made a small impact on
me at least.

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ceyhunkazel
RIP Lotfi Aliasker Zadeh.Form an interview "Obstinacy and tenacity. Not being
afraid to get embroiled in controversy. That's very much a Turkish tradition.
That's part of my character, too. I can be very stubborn. That's probably been
beneficial for the development of Fuzzy Logic."

~~~
ceyhunkazel
Same interview:

 __Interviewer:Would you say that Fuzzy Logic turns Aristotelian or Classical
Logic on its head?

 __Lotfi:(Laughs). Back in Aristotle 's day, people tried to be as precise as
possible. That's the Aristotelian tradition, the Cartesian tradition. Looking
at things as being entirely black or white stems from such a tradition. But
take the example of good and bad. What we're beginning to understand now is
that sometimes things that we perceive as bad really turn out to be good, or
perhaps, not as bad as we originally thought. Things can serve a purpose.
People back in Aristotle's time and even later thought that by perceiving
things in black and white (in absolute terms) that they gained alot. And they
did. But they lost a great deal in the process. Fuzzy Logic represents a swing
in the opposite direction but I would like to stress that there is much more
to Fuzzy Logic than multi-valuedness of truth.

Classical logic has erred in devoting so little attention to approximate
reasoning and focusing to such a high degree on exact reasoning. So when you
take a course in logic, you learn all kinds of things which are of very little
use in everyday life. We encounter approximate reasoning all the time. For
example, "Where can I park my car?" Where should I have lunch? Should I place
this call "person-to person" or "station to station"? Should I buy this house?
How do I get from this side of town to the other when I'm in a hurry?
Classical logic, operation research, decision analysis-many other disciplines
have nothing to say about this topic.

[http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/24_folder/24_a...](http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/24_folder/24_articles/24_fuzzylogic.html)

~~~
jerrysievert
thankfully, he gave a fantastic talk recognizing Alfred Korzybski in 1994.

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rdtsc
I met him once, he came for a conference at my university. During lunch he sat
next to him. What had struck me was how kind, humble and considerate he was.
Sometimes people of his caliber have the "I am too important or to busy to
talk to some no name student like you" attitude but he was the opposite of
that.

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protomyth
Darnit. Fuzzy sets and logic just made sense to me in so many ways and I found
his writings quite interesting. RIP.

~~~
throwaway613834
Would you mind concisely explaining one example and application of it? I've
read (for example) about possibility theory, but I hardly understand what it
helps us do that probability theory didn't.

~~~
ceyhunkazel
Here you are

[https://youtu.be/J_Q5X0nTmrA](https://youtu.be/J_Q5X0nTmrA)

Fuzzy logic reminds me Albert Einstein quote about mathematics. "As far as the
laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they
are certain, they do not refer to reality."

~~~
trentmb
Whoever decided on the trembling text is a monster.

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watersb
A kind, patient mentor when I needed much kindness and patience.

Dear God, who is going to clean out his office?

~~~
dmd
If he were still at MIT, that would be my wife's job; as a curator for the MIT
museum she does a lot of cleaning out and cataloging objects from retiring or
deceased professors offices. I'm sure she has a counterpart who will be doing
the same.

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abecode
RIP. Set theory has always been an interesting topic but Prof. Zadeh stirred
up the pot by proposing and strongly advocating fuzzy sets, which have opened
up both new theoretical and practical paths for others to explore.

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drallison
I am sad to learn Lotfi has died. He was a friend and a frequent speaker in
Stanford's EE380 Colloquium. He was a inspiring pragmatist whose fuzzy logic
was understandable,explainable,functioned as expected, and quickly became
incorporated into real products. The competing technology, knowledge systems,
was far less transparent, slow to leave the lab, and often not as effective.

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techno_modus
179371 citations and 104 h-index [1]. But what is more important is that he
founded a whole epoch in AI which is a rather rare event.

[1]
[https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=S6H-0RAAAAAJ](https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=S6H-0RAAAAAJ)

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j-pb
I'm sure that there will be a renissance of fuzzy logic, its sad to know that
he will not witness it. His character will be missed, but his contributions
won't be forgotten.

~~~
dnautics
If you strip away some cosmetic differences, most deep learning is _basically
fuzzy logic_ , so he did witness it.

~~~
zero_
Out of curiosity can you elaborate on this?

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srikz
One of my favourite subjects during college. I recommend the book by Timothy
Ross - Fuzzy Logic with Engineering Applications for anyone interested.

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JoeDaDude
Most unfortunate. I did have the pleasure of seeing him when he came to
Villanova University to accept an award from the Franklin Institute.

[https://www.fi.edu/laureates/lotfi-zadeh](https://www.fi.edu/laureates/lotfi-
zadeh)

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mercurystills
RIP Professor Zadeh. His work inspires aspects of my graduate research in
logic.

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MikeGale
Hamba Gahle.

