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Daniel Edwards

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Daniel J. Edwards,

an American computer scientist with a long-term career as a computer security researcher at the National Security Agency (NSA) [1]. In 1972 he coined the term Trojan horse for malicious computer programs [2]. In the 60s, while affiliated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was involved in the initial development of LISP within the group of John McCarthy. Along with Timothy Hart, Daniel Edwards wrote a memo on Alpha-Beta in December 1961, revised version in 1963 [3]. It also contains a Theorem by Michael Levin, the well known formula of the number of leaf nodes that need to be examined in Alpha-Beta.

Quotes

Alpha-Beta

Quote by John McCarthy from Human-Level AI is harder than it seemed in 1955 on the Dartmouth workshop:

Chess programs catch some of the human chess playing abilities but rely on the limited [effective branching](Branching_Factor "Branching Factor") of the chess move [tree](Search_Tree "Search Tree"). The ideas that work for chess are inadequate for [go](Go "Go"). [Alpha-beta pruning](Alpha-Beta "Alpha-Beta") characterizes human play, but it wasn't noticed by [early chess programmers](Category:Pioneer "Category:Pioneer") - [Turing](Alan_Turing "Alan Turing"), [Shannon](Claude_Shannon "Claude Shannon"), [Pasta](John_Pasta "John Pasta") and [Ulam](Stanislaw_Ulam "Stanislaw Ulam"), and [Bernstein](Alex_Bernstein "Alex Bernstein"). We humans are not very good at identifying the heuristics we ourselves use. Approximations to alpha-beta used by [Samuel](Arthur_Samuel "Arthur Samuel"), [Newell](Allen_Newell "Allen Newell") and [Simon](Herbert_Simon "Herbert Simon"), McCarthy. Proved equivalent to [minimax](Minimax "Minimax") by [Hart](Timothy_Hart "Timothy Hart") and [Levin](Michael_Levin "Michael Levin"), independently by [Brudno](Alexander_Brudno "Alexander Brudno"). [Knuth](Donald_Knuth "Donald Knuth") gives details.

LISP

Quote by John McCarthy in History of Lisp [4]:

Many people participated in the initial development of [LISP](index.php?title=LISP&action=edit&redlink=1 "LISP (page does not exist)"), and I haven't been able to remember all their contributions and must settle, at this writing, for a list of names. I can remember [Paul W. Abrahams](Paul_W._Abrahams "Paul W. Abrahams"), [Robert Brayton](Mathematician#RKBrayton "Mathematician"), Daniel Edwards, [Patrick Fischer](Mathematician#PCFischer "Mathematician"), [Phyllis Fox](Mathematician#PFox "Mathematician"), [Saul Goldberg](http://www.ee.calpoly.edu/faculty/sgoldber/), [Timothy Hart](Timothy_Hart "Timothy Hart"), [Louis Hodes](Mathematician#LHodes "Mathematician"), [Michael Levin](Michael_Levin "Michael Levin"), [David Luckham](Mathematician#DLuckham "Mathematician"), Klim Maling, [Marvin Minsky](Marvin_Minsky "Marvin Minsky"), [David Park](Mathematician#DPark "Mathematician"), [Nathaniel Rochester](Nathaniel_Rochester "Nathaniel Rochester") of [IBM](index.php?title=IBM&action=edit&redlink=1 "IBM (page does not exist)"), and [Steve Russell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Russell_(computer_scientist)).

See also

Selected Publications

References

  1. ↑ Daniel Edwards, Jeffrey R. Yost (2013). Oral history interview with Daniel J. Edwards. Charles Babbage Institute
  2. ↑ James P. Anderson (1972). Computer Security Planning Study. ESD-TR-73-51, Vol. II, pdf, Trojan Horse, pp. 62
  3. ↑ Daniel Edwards, Timothy Hart (1961). The Alpha-Beta Heuristic. AIM-030
  4. ↑ John McCarthy (1979). History of Lisp. Chapter 4, From LISP 1 to LISP 1.5
  5. ↑ McCarthy et al. LISP 1.5 Programmer’s Manual. from The Computer History Museum Software Preservation Group

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