Computer Science as Empirical Inquiry: Symbols and Search
The 1975 ACM Turing Award was presented jointly to Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon at the ACM Annual Conference in Minneapolis, October 20. introducing the recipients, Bernard A. Galler, Chairman of the Turing Award Committee, read the following citation: It is a privilege to be able to present the A C M Turing Award to two friends of long standing, Professors Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon, both of Carnegie-Mellon University. In joint scientific efforts extending over twenty years, initially in collaboration with J.C. Shaw at the R A N D Corporation, and subsequently with numerous faculty and student colleague~ at Carnegie-Mellon University, they have made basic contributions to artificial intelligence, the psychology of human cognition, and list processing. In artificial intelligence, they contributed to the establishment of the field as an area of scientific endeavor, to the development of heuristic programming generally, and of heuristic search, meansends analysis, and methods of induction, in particular; providing demonstrations of the sufficiency of these mechanisms to solve interesting problems. In psychology, they were principal instigators of the idea that human cognition can be described in terms of a symbol system, and they have developed detailed theories for human problem solving, verbal learning and inductive behavior in a number of task domains, using computer programs embodying these theories to simulate the human behavior. They were apparently the inventors of list processing, and have been major contributors to both software technology and the development of the concept of the computer as a system of manipulating symbolic structures and not just as a processor of numerical data. It is an honor for Professors Newell and Simon to be given this award, but it is also an honor for ACM to be able to add their names to our list of recipients, since by their presence, they will add to the prestige and importance of the ACM Turing Award.