Marvin Lee Minsky is an educator and computer scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence. Since the early 1950s, he has attempted to define and explain the thinking process and design a machine that can duplicate it. His 1987 book, The Society of Mind, put forward a detailed and mechanistic theory of how the mind works, and how it might be artificially duplicated. For his original and outstanding achievements in science and technology, Minsky was awarded the Japan Prize in 1990. Marvin Lee Minsky was born in New York City on August 9, 1927, to Dr. Henry Minsky and Fannie Reiser. His father was an eye surgeon and an artist. His mother was active in the Zionist movement. For the most part, Minsky attended private schools during his childhood, where his intelligence and later his interest in electronics and chemistry were nurtured. He learned...