Hal Abelson

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Harold (Hal) Abelson is the Class of 1922 Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the MIT, and a fellow of the IEEE. He holds an A.B. degree from Princeton University and a Ph.D. degree in mathematics from MIT. In 1992, Abelson was designated as one of MIT's six inaugural MacVicar Faculty Fellows, in recognition of his significant and sustained contributions to teaching and undergraduate education. Abelson was recipient in 1992 of the Bose Award (MIT's School of Engineering teaching award). Abelson is also the winner of the 1995 Taylor L. Booth Education Award given by IEEE Computer Society, cited for his continued contributions to the pedagogy and teaching of introductory computer science. Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ... Engineering is the application of scientific and technical knowledge to solve human problems. ... The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, is a private research university located in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Its mission and culture are guided by an emphasis on teaching and research grounded in practical applications of science and technology. ... The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE (pronounced as eye-triple-ee) is an international non-profit, professional organization incorporated in the State of New York, United States. ... A Bachelor of Arts (B.A. or A.B.) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or program in the arts and/or sciences. ... Princeton University is a coeducational private university located in Princeton, New Jersey. ... Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. ...

Abelson has a longstanding interest in using computation as a conceptual framework in teaching. He directed the first implementation of LOGO for the Apple II, which made the language widely available on personal computers beginning in 1981; and published a widely selling book on LOGO in 1982. His book Turtle Geometry, written with Andrea diSessa in 1981, presented a computational approach to geometry has been cited as "the first step in a revolutionary change in the entire teaching/learning process." Logo turtle graphic The Logo programming language is a functional programming language. ... The 1977 Apple II, complete with integrated keyboard, color graphics, sound, a plastic case and eight expansion slots. ... Andrea diSessa is an education researcher who has authored Turtle Geometry and Changing Minds (2000). ...

Together with Gerald Jay Sussman, Abelson developed MIT's introductory computer science subject, "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs," a subject organized around the notion that a computer language is primarily a formal medium for expressing ideas about methodology, rather than just a way to get a computer to perform operations. This work, through Abelson and Sussman's popular eponymous computer science textbook, videotapes of their lectures, and the availability on personal computers of the Scheme dialect of Lisp (used in teaching the course), has had a world-wide impact on university computer-science education. // Gerald Jay Sussman is the Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). ... Front cover Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) is a textbook published in 1985 about general computer programming concepts from MIT press written by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman, with Julie Sussman. ... Scheme is a multi-paradigm programming language and a dialect of Lisp which supports functional and procedural programming. ...

Abelson and Sussman also cooperate in codirecting the MIT Project on Mathematics and Computation, a project of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (previously a joint project of the AI Lab and LCS, CSAIL's components). The goal of the project is to create better computational tools for scientists and engineers. But even with powerful numerical computers, exploring complex physical systems still requires substantial human effort and human judgement to prepare simulations and to interpret numerical results. Together their students, Abelson and Sussman are combining techniques from numerical computing, symbolic algebra, and heuristic programming to develop programs that not only perform massive numerical computations, but that also interpret these computations and "discuss" the results in qualitative terms. Programs such as these could form the basis for intelligent scientific instruments that monitor physical systems based upon high-level behavioral descriptions. More generally, they could lead to a new generation of computational tools that can autonomously explore complex physical systems, and which will play an important part in the future practice of science and engineering. At the same time, these programs incorporate computational formulations of scientific knowledge that can form the foundations of better ways to teach science and engineering. MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, or CSAIL, is an interdisciplinary research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, formed on July 1, 2003 by the merger of MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. ... The MIT Artificial intelligence Laboratory was an interdisciplinary research entity at MIT founded in 1959, and one of the most influential and accomplished in the field. ... Project MAC, later the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS), was a research laboratory at MIT. Project MAC would become famous for groundbreaking research in operating systems, artificial intelligence, and the theory of computation. ... Algebra is a branch of mathematics concerning the study of structure, relation and quantity. ... Heuristic is the art and science of discovery and invention. ...

Trivia

• Richard Stallman reportedly enjoys sleeping on Dr. Abelson's couch.
• Dr. Abelson is known to have been involved in the publishing of Andrew Huang's Hacking the Xbox and Keith Winstein's seven line Perl DeCSS script, qrpff, and LAMP, MIT's campus wide cable music distribution system.
• Hal Abelson is credited with the following quip (though he attributes it to his Princeton roommate, Jeff Goll) :
  "If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders". It is a parody of a reverse statement first attibuted to the philosopher Bernard of Chartres but often credited to the scientist Sir Isaac Newton.
• The MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) project was spearheaded by Hal Abelson and other MIT Faculty.

Richard Matthew Stallman (frequently abbreviated to RMS) (born March 16, 1953) is the founder of the free software movement, the GNU Project, and the Free Software Foundation. ... Perl, also Practical Extraction and Report Language (a backronym, see below) is a dynamic procedural programming language designed by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. ... DeCSS is a computer program capable of decrypting content on a DVD video disc encrypted using the Content-Scrambling System (CSS). ... qrpff is a perl script created by Keith Winstein and Marc Horowitz of the MIT SIPB. It performs DeCSS in six or seven lines. ... A project by Keith Winstein and Joshua Mandel and funded by the MIT/Microsoft iCampus alliance, LAMP is a free music library for MIT students. ... Wit is a form of intellectual humour, based on manipulation of concepts; a wit is someone who excels in witty remarks, typically in conversation and spontaneously, since wit carries the connotation of speed of thought. ... Bernard of Chartres (Bernardus Carnotensis) was a twelfth-century French philosopher, scholar, and administrator. ... Sir Isaac Newton in Knellers portrait of 1689. ... MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to put all of the educational materials from MITs undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, free and openly available to anyone, anywhere, by the year 2007. ...

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Hal Abelson

• Abelson's Website at MIT

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