[SCC_Active_Members] About Margaret Masterman

[Edward Feigenbaum]

[Sorry, folks, there was a mailer problem with a version of this I  
sent earlier in the day, so I am resending it]

Ed Feigenbaum

>
> Subject: Margaret Masterman
>
> Like a flash of lightning from the past. When I was on my Fulbright  
> post-doctoral fellowship in 1959-60 in England, I got to know
> Margaret and her husband who was an eminent philosopher of the  
> time. Margaret was very good in the newly emerging field of
> computational linguistics, one of its founders in fact.
>
> My intro to Margaret and her husband was through Karen Spark-Jones,  
> who was either still a doctoral student or a new D. Phil. of  
> Margaret's.
> (Karen died of cancer a few weeks ago; she is the recipient of the  
> 2007 ACM Allen Newell Award). Karen and her husband, Roger Needham  
> (who was
> working for Wilkes at the time) traveled to where I was, at the  
> National Physical Laboratory south of London, to learn from me  
> about the IPL list processing languages.
>
> I subsequently spent much time with them in Cambridge, hence met  
> Margaret and her husband, dined at their house, had memorable  
> discussions
> with them, etc.
>
> Is it depressing or exhilarating to remember days in 1959-60 as if  
> they were just yesterday?
>
> Best wishes

Ed Feigenbaum


> On Apr 22, 2007, at 11:21 AM, H.M. Gladney wrote:
>> A snippet that I find interesting, about 1 of the 5 members of  
>> Ludwig Wittgenstein's 1933-4 class "Philosophy for Mathematicians":
>>
>> "philosopher Margaret Masterman (a pioneer in the field of  
>> computational linguistics, her beliefs about language processing  
>> by computers were ahead of their time and are now fundamental to  
>> the field of artificial intelligence);"
>>
>> From King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, 2006, ISBN  
>> 0-8027-1499-4. For context, I am attaching two OCR'd pages of this  
>> book. <<...>>
>>
>> Cheerio, Henry
>>
>> H.M. Gladney, Ph.D. http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney
>>
>> <Coxeter excerpt with LW.doc>
>
>
>

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