Fuzzy Logic Is a Way to Deal with Imprecise Concepts

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As I sit down to write this paper, I am also waiting for my laundry to finish. I set the machine to “auto” load size and dumped my clothes in, oblivious to the actual size of the load. The machine can calculate the size of the load for me, and assure that my clothes are washed at the proper temperature for the proper amount of time. This is accomplished through the use of what is referred to as soft computing, pioneered by a man named Lofti Zadeh (Peterson). Lofti Zadeh was born in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1921. The son of an Iranian journalist and a Russian physician, Zadeh’s early life was spent under the influence of Soviet ideas. In an interview with Betty Blair, Zadeh speaks of how the Soviet schools of his childhood placed great importance on science, math, hard work, and putting the needs of society above the individual. Combined with a “voracious” love of reading, and the further influence of American Presbyterian missionaries when he was 10 years old, these Soviet ideals helped cultivate in Zadeh a heightened sense of curiosity and a desire to put his knowledge to use in helping others. He graduated from the University of Tehran in 1942, then went on to earn his Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York in 1949 (Blair). Zadeh began a professorship at the University of California at Berkeley in 1959, and it was here that he started his work on “Fuzzy Logic,” a theory that would eventually be applied towards many things in the form of soft computing (Blair). Fuzzy Logic, defined as “multivalued (as opposed to binary) logic developed to deal with imprecise or vague data” (“Fuzzy logic”), was developed by Zadeh in 1965, during his time at Berkeley. Already recognized internationally for his work with mathematical syste... ... middle of paper ... ...or the use of natural language in scientific theory, rather than simply numbers and figures, will open mathematics and science to a significantly larger number of people (Blair). Zadeh says that the concept “marks a significant paradigm shift” (Blair) in science and mathematics, and with how rapidly we have appropriated and applied fuzzy logic in the past 50 years, one can only imagine what amazing applications will be found in the next 50 years. Overall, fuzzy logic and soft computing have been an enormous boon to our daily lives. The convenience provided by soft computing cannot be overstated. Without these concepts, everything from washing machines to cars would operate in a drastically different manner. Lofti Zadeh’s radical theory has changed the way many people look at mathematics, and will doubtlessly be applied in many new and exciting ways in the future.

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