A renown American mathematician of Azerbaijani origin, the creator of the theory of fuzzy logic, a professor at the University of California (Berkeley), Lotfi Zadeh (Lotfi Rahim oglu Aleskerzade) has recently celebrated his 94th birthday.
In the world of applied mathematics, computer science and fuzzy logic, Professor Lotfi Zadeh needs no introduction. The "father" of the fuzzy logic, he is considered one of the most outstanding Azerbaijanis in the world of science. His revolutionary theory of fuzzy logic is widely used in the production of photo and video cameras, washing machines, vacuum cleaners as well as in vehicle control and in control of industrial companies by such global giants as General Motors, General Electric, Motorola, Kodak, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Sony, Nissan, Panasonic and Honda. Cement and blast furnaces operating on the basis of fuzzy logic are produced in Denmark. Moreover, fuzzy logic, as Lotfi Zadeh's theory is called in scientific circles, is also used in the production of nuclear power-generating units and complex technological processes.
The scope of the application of the ideas of Lotfi Zadeh is enormous. It was thanks to his theory that Hitachi and Sharp provide the level of temperature fluctuation in air conditioners and microwave ovens and microwave ovens manufactured by these firms use fuzzy sets to provide the right cooking strategy. Whether you deal with Canon copiers, Matsuchita dryers or dishwashers, Daewoo or Samsung washing machines, Sony TVs or computers, all of this technology to a certain extent was made possible by fuzzy sets theory of Lotfi Zadeh.
Vestnik Kavkaza was told about the changes brought to the world science by the discoveries of Professor Lotfi Zadeh by a close friend of the scientist, the president of the association Heritage of Zadeh and artificial intelligence expert Professor Rafiq Aliyev. According to him, these discoveries contradicting the theory of the great Aristotle urge us to see and perceive the world as a more colorful place.
He noted that until the 1960s classical logic based on Aristotelian logic was the foundation of all theories. Aristotle said that a statement can be either true or false. Lotfi Zadeh, in his turn, argued that the degree of truthfulness of any statement takes on continuous measurements on the scale between truth and falsehood.
"For example, according to the logic of Aristotle, man is man's friend or enemy. According to the logic of Lotfi Zadeh, relations between friends and enemies embrace a number of degrees in their relationship, such as familiarity, neutrality, close friendship, friendship based on the same interests, etc. Or let me give you another example. Up to 30 years of age a person is considered to be young. But once someone turns 31 years old, according to classical logic this man will not be considered young anymore. But real life is different. A person can be young when 30 and 35. This is the main difference between fuzzy logic and classical logic," Rafiq Aliyev said.
The scientist noted that Lotfi Zadeh's fuzzy logic is distinguished by two factors. The first one is that "apart from God, in real life every process has a certain degree of reliability." "Today, given the economic crisis in the world, this is very important. We can say that the economy of the United States or Germany is good or bad. And before the theory of Lotfi Zadeh, people in the West used to say that the economy was either good or bad, but in fact there are such states of the economy as growing, stable economies, economic recession, etc. on the scale between good and bad. That is, classical mathematics did not take such things into account," Aliyev said.
We admit that there is more tolerance and patience and fewer accusations in a logic like that. This logic offers possibilities to perceive the real world in a more accurate way. It has made a revolution in science, but it has veen treated with suspicion and not much enthusiasm in the United States in the past 20 years, which are particularly careful about scientific novelties. After all, the multi-faceted and continuous logic of Lotfi Zadeh destroyed the borders of the binary logic of Aristotle.
It is known that Lotfi Zadeh's childhood did not coincide with Azerbaijan's best years. Lotfi Zadeh was born on February 4, 1921 in Baku to a family of a journalist Rahim Aleskerzade and and a doctor Faniya Koriman. His ancestors came from the city of Ardabil in South Azerbaijan. When the boy was nine years old, his family had to leave Baku. The reason for returning to Iran was the new rules imposed by the USSR and approved in 1932, according to which Azerbaijanis from Southern Azerbaijan had to either become Soviet citizens or leave the country. Dissatisfied with many of the actions of the Soviet Union, the family moved to Iran. After graduating from school, he joined the department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Tehran.
When Lotfi Zadeh turned 38 years old, he began working at the University of California (Berkeley) as professor and received a tenure there several years later. He worked there on a variety of scientific projects, in which he developed a foundation for "the theory of Zadeh." When he turned 42, he became the head of the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley. Later, the Zadeh Institute of Information Technology was founded there.
World science is familiar with six fundamental scientific theories of Lotfi Zadeh. Lotfi Zadeh introduced his revolutionary theory of fuzzy logic when he was 52 years old, it was the theory of soft computing and the theory of computation and verbal representations.
Zadeh's discovery played a crucial role in all areas of science and technology, and marked the beginning of a new trend in science and philosophy. His work on fuzzy sets received a lot of responses and initiated a new direction in science. The basic components of the system are important for the fields of economics, management, information retrieval, artificial intelligence, linguistics, medicine, biology and other fields.
Fuzzy logic is used actively in politics and economics. The theory of fuzzy stability is applied to oil refining and other economic and technical systems. It even helps predict oil prices on the world market.
Today about 25 scholarly journals related to the theory of fuzzy logic of Lotfi Zadeh are published annually around the world. Every year thousands of articles on fuzzy logic are published. In recent years, in the US, Japan and Europe more than 1,300 patents based on the use of fuzzy logic have been used in production. Since 1966, there are Lotfi Zadeh scientific schools and laboratories in England, Germany, Japan and many other countries around the world.
Despite his age, Professor Lotfi Zadeh continues to work on new discoveries. Recently, Lotfi Zadeh together with Professor Rafiq Aliyev has completed his new book, The New Arithmetic.
The theory of fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic have received worldwide recognition. This has happened largely thanks to Zadeh, who is actively promoting his ideas around the world. Professor Lotfi Zadeh was awarded honorary doctorates of prestigious universities in 25 countries. He is also a member of many national academies of sciences.
