JM
Technology & Engineering

John McCarthy

Who

John McCarthy · Technology & Engineering

What

Coined 'artificial intelligence'; created LISP; Turing Award laureate.

When

1927, Boston, Massachusetts, United States — 2011, Stanford, California, United States

Where

United States

Biography

John McCarthy is recognized among Jewish contributors to Technology & Engineering — Coined 'artificial intelligence'; created LISP; Turing Award laureate.

How & why

McCarthy studied mathematics at Caltech and Princeton, then organized the 1956 Dartmouth workshop where he coined the term 'artificial intelligence' and helped found the field. In 1958 he designed LISP, which became the dominant programming language of AI research, and he later pioneered time-sharing and received the 1971 Turing Award. He was the son of an Irish Catholic immigrant father and a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant mother, Ida Glatt, giving him Jewish ancestry on his mother's side.

Sources & external links

Verify and go deeper with these external references.

Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Computer Science

Contributions & Sources

Coined 'artificial intelligence'; created LISP; Turing Award laureate.

1927

Source: Jinfo.org — Jews in Computer Science