The Life of John McCarthy

Coined the term artificial intellegence (AI)

Feb 28, 1955

Interview with John McCarthy about artificial intellegence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozipf13jRr4

Dartmouth conference to research the field of artificial intellegence

Feb 28, 1956

Early ideas for LISP came from this conference (McCarthy, 1).

Early years of developing LISP

Period: Feb 28, 1956 to Feb 28, 1958

"...Summer 1956 through Summer 1958 when most of the key ideas were developed..." (McCarthy, 1).

Early implementation of LISP

Period: Feb 28, 1958 to Feb 28, 2016

"... Fall1958 through 1962 when the programming language was implemented and applied to problems of artificial intelligence" (McCarthy, 1).

Conceptualized and implemented garbage collection

Feb 28, 1959

McCarthy invented garbage collection for his programming language Lisp ("Garbage collection (computer science)").

At MIT, started development on a IBM 704 chess program

Feb 28, 1959

Published "Programs with Common Sense"

Feb 28, 1959

Contributed to the development of AGOL

Feb 28, 1960

One of the first to discuss utilitiy computing

Feb 28, 1960

"This multiuser concept was called time sharing, and in 1960 the heaviest of the MIT planners began the Long-Range Computer Study Group" (Levy, 58). McCarthy was one of the members of the study group as Levy explained, "To them, it was not a question of whether to time-share or not, it was a question of how to do it" (Levy, 58).

Founded the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL)

Feb 28, 1962

Developed a chess program with his team at Stanford

Feb 28, 1966

Received Turing Award

Feb 28, 1971

The concept behind a "space fountain"

Feb 28, 1980

The concept for a space fountain was originated by John McCarthy and Hans Moravec in the 1980's ("space fountain").

Computer Pioneer Award

Feb 28, 1985

IJCAI Award for Research Excellence

Feb 28, 1985

Kyoto Prize

Feb 28, 1988

National Medal of Science

Feb 28, 1990

Benjamin Franklin Medal

Feb 28, 2003