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Alexander Kronrod [1] [2]
Aleksandr (Alexander) Semenovich Kronrod , (October 22, 1921 – October 6, 1986)
was a Russian mathematician and computer scientist. Kronrod and his fellow
Georgy Adelson-Velsky were the last students of
Nikolai Luzin at
Moscow State University . In the 50s and 60s Kronrod was professor and head of the Computational Laboratory at Moscows
Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEF or ITEP ). He was involved in developing the
ITEP Chess Program in motivating his friends Georgy Adelson-Velsky and
Alexander Brudno , as well in his proposal of a “general
recursive search scheme”. Kronrod is well known for saying, “chess is the
Drosophila of
artificial intelligence ” [3] .
In 1965, while
John McCarthy visited the
Soviet Union , he was challenged by Kronrod, who considered the
Kotok-McCarthy-Program to be the best program in the
United States at the time. At the end of 1966 the
four game match was arranged between Kotok-McCarthy, running on a
IBM 7090 computer, and the ITEP Program on a Soviet
M-20 . The match played over nine months was won 3-1 by the ITEP Program.
Quotes# Remembering A.S. Kronrod# Quote from Remembering A.S. Kronrod by
Evgenii Landis and
Isaak Yaglom [4] :
Only in 1955 did a real opportunity arise for A.S. Kronrod to work with an electronic computer. It was the [M2 computer](M-2 "M-2") constructed by [I.S. Bruk](http://www.computer-museum.ru/english/galglory_en/Bruk.htm), [M.A. Kartsev](http://www.computer-museum.ru/english/galglory_en/kartsev.htm), and [N.Ya. Matyukhin](http://www.computer-museum.ru/english/galglory_en/Matyukhin.htm) in the laboratory of the Institute of Energy named after [Krzhizhanovsky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleb_Krzhizhanovsky) and directed by I.S. Bruk. This laboratory later became the to Institute for Electronic Control Machines. The mathematics/machine interface was developed by [A.L. Brudno](Alexander_Brudno "Alexander Brudno"), a great personal and likeminded friend of A.S. Kronrod.
When he started with enthusiasm to program the M2 machine, A.S. Kronrod quickly came to the conclusion that computing is not the main application of computers. The main goal is to teach the computer to think, i.e., what is now called "[artificial intelligence](Artificial_Intelligence "Artificial Intelligence")" and in those days "heuristic programming".
A.S. Kronrod captivated a large group of mathematicians and physicists ([G.M. Adelson Velsky](Georgy_Adelson-Velsky "Georgy Adelson-Velsky"), A.L. Brudno, [M.M. Bongard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bongard_problem), [E.M. Landis](Mathematician#Landis "Mathematician"), [N.N. Konstantinov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Konstantinov), and others). Although some of them had arrived at this kind of problems on their own, they unconditionally accepted his leadership. In the room next to the one housing the M2 machine the work of the new Kronrod seminar started. At the gatherings there were heated discussions on [pattern recognition](Pattern_Recognition "Pattern Recognition") problems (this work was led by M.M. Bongard; versions of his program "Kora" are still functioning), transportation problems (the problem was introduced to the seminar and actively worked on by A.L. Brudno), problems of automata theory, and many other problems.
Intellectual Foundations# Quote from Biography AS Kronrod by Alexander Yershov [5]
In 1958, Kronrod, [Adelson-Velsky](Georgy_Adelson-Velsky "Georgy Adelson-Velsky"), and [Landis](Mathematician#Landis "Mathematician") selected "[Snap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapjack)" ("подкидного дурака") as the intellectual foundations for the development of the game heuristic programming <a id="cite-note-6" href="#cite-ref-6">[6]</a>. The program itself was a fiasco - but the basic principles (board games, [search techniques](Search "Search") and [limited depth](Depth "Depth")) were formulated. Further research laboratories in the field of game theory culminated in the first ever chess duel between the [program](ITEP_Chess_Program "ITEP Chess Program") of the [Institute](Institute_of_Theoretical_and_Experimental_Physics "Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics") of Soviet and American [best program](Kotok-McCarthy-Program "Kotok-McCarthy-Program") developed at [Stanford University](Stanford_University "Stanford University") under the direction of [J. McCarthy](John_McCarthy "John McCarthy"). By [telegraph match](Stanford-ITEP_Match "Stanford-ITEP Match") was played in four games ended 3-1 in favor of our institute. At the time, chess became a [guinea pig](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_pig_%28disambiguation%29) for all programmers interested in [artificial intelligence](Artificial_Intelligence "Artificial Intelligence").
Competitions, Controversies, and Computer Chess# Quote from Competitions, Controversies, and Computer Chess [7] :
[This match](Stanford-ITEP_Match "Stanford-ITEP Match") has a very sad postscript: Alexander Kronrod, the head of the Computational lab at ITEP, was a highly principled person who, among with many other mathematicians, signed a letter in defense of [Esenin-Volpin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Esenin-Volpin), a mathematician who was placed in an insane asylum for anti-Communist views. For his signature of the letter Kronrod was reprimanded by the Communist Party. The physicists at ITEP, who were irritated because computer time was “wasted” on game playing instead of their problems used the reprimand as an excuse to oust Kronrod from his position. At the same time Kronrod was fired from his professorship at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute. These actions effectively ended the career of this brilliant mathematician.
What is AI?# Quote by
John McCarthy from What is Artificial Intelligence ? [8] [9] :
Alexander Kronrod, a Russian AI researcher, said '[Chess](Chess "Chess") is the [Drosophila](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophila) of [AI](Artificial_Intelligence "Artificial Intelligence").' He was making an analogy with geneticists' use of that fruit fly to study inheritance. Playing chess requires certain intellectual mechanisms and not others. Chess programs now play at grandmaster level, but they do it with limited intellectual mechanisms compared to those used by a human chess player, substituting large amounts of computation for understanding. Once we understand these mechanisms better, we can build human-level chess programs that do far less computation than do present programs. Unfortunately, the competitive and commercial aspects of making computers play chess have taken precedence over using chess as a scientific domain. It is as if the geneticists after 1910 had organized fruit fly races and concentrated their efforts on breeding fruit flies that could win these races.
Selected Publications# [10]
Georgy Adelson-Velsky , Alexander Kronrod (1945 ). On a direct proof of the analyticity of a monigenic function . (Russian)
Doklady Akademii Nauk , Vol. 50Georgy Adelson-Velsky , Alexander Kronrod (1945 ). On the level of continuous fuctions possessing partial derivatives . (Russian)
Doklady Akademii Nauk , Vol. 50Georgy Adelson-Velsky , Alexander Kronrod (1945 ). On the maximum principle for an elliptic system . (Russian)
Doklady Akademii Nauk , Vol. 50Alexander Kronrod (1946 ). On permutations if terms of numerical series . (Russian)
Rec. Math. (Mat. Sbornik) N.S., Vol. 18(60) , No. 2 Alexander Kronrod,
Evgenii Landis (1947 ). On level sets of a function of several variables . (Russian)
Doklady Akademii Nauk , Vol. 58 Georgy Adelson-Velsky ,
Alexander Brudno , Alexander Kronrod, Pavel T. Reznikovsky (1964 ). A system of commands for a three-address machine without address register .
Doklady Akademii Nauk , Vol. 154, No. 3Alexander Kronrod (1965 ). Nodes and weights of quadrature formulas. Sixteen-place tables . New York: Consultants Bureau [11] Vladimir Arlazarov , Alexander Kronrod, V.A. Kronrod (1966 ). A new type of electron computer .
Doklady Akademii Nauk , Vol. 171, No. 2External Links# References# ↑
Alexander Kronrod from Wikipedia ↑ Image from
Evgenii Landis ,
Isaak Yaglom (1987 ). Remembering A.S. Kronrod . (2002 ). Translation by
Viola Brudno , Edited by
Walter Gautschi ,
ps ↑
Alexander Kronrod from Wikiquote ↑
Evgenii Landis ,
Isaak Yaglom (1987 ). Remembering A.S. Kronrod . (2002 ). Translation by
Viola Brudno , Edited by
Walter Gautschi ,
ps ↑
Биография А.С. Кронрода (Biography AS Kronrod) by Alexander Yershov↑
Boris Polyak. Memories. ↑
Michael Brudno (2000 ). Competitions, Controversies, and Computer Chess ,
pdf ↑
John McCarthy (1989 ). The Fruitfly on the Fly .
ICCA Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4 ↑
John McCarthy (1990 ). Chess as the Drosophila of AI .
Computers, Chess, and Cognition , pp. 227-237↑
Kronrod Aleksandr Semenovich ↑
Gauss–Kronrod quadrature formula - Wikipedia Up one level