Marvin Minsky, who combined a scientist’s thirst for knowledge with a philosopher’s quest for truth as a pioneering explorer of artificial intelligence, work that helped inspire the creation of the personal computer and the Internet, died on Sunday night in Boston. He was 88. His family said the cause was a cerebral hemorrhage. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/b...er-in-artificial-intelligence-dies-at-88.html Isaac Asimov described Minsky as one of only two people he would admit were more intelligent than he was. The other one being Carl Sagan.
I have had the pleasure of the acquaintance of a mensa friend of Isaac who influenced him to remove all references to the habit of smoking cigarettes after the first book in his Foundation series (and those references irritated me as well). Isaac himself was undoubtedly brilliant, but of this particular friend I would say that Isaac must have forgotten at least one friend evidently smarter than he was when he counted them. In case you didn't know, it was Isaac who founded mensa. But yes, we will all miss Marvin.
