Lotfi Zadeh wins 2017 Golden Goose Award
CS Prof. Emeritus Lotfi Zadeh has posthumously won a 2017 Golden Goose Award for “Fuzzy Logic, Clear Impact,” sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The award honors teams of scientists whose silly-sounding taxpayer-funded research has returned serious benefits to society. “Zadeh proposed these revolutionary concepts in 1965 to deal with the mathematics and logic of imprecise information, receiving a skeptical response and howls of ‘complete nonsense.’ He even drew the attention of Senator William Proxmire and the infamous Golden Fleece Award. But since the concept’s debut, the original research paper has become one of the most widely cited in history, used in more than 16,000 patents and applied to efficiency improvements for HVAC systems, healthcare devices and more.” The winners will be honored at a ceremony at the Library of Congress this evening.” Prof. Zadeh passed away earlier this month.