View source for Woody Bledsoe

{{short description|American mathematician and computer scientist}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2012}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name        = Woodrow Wilson Bledsoe
| native_name = 
| native_name_lang = 
| image       = Bledsoe.gif
| alt         = 
| caption     = 
| birth_date  = {{birth date |1921|11|12}}
| birth_place = [[Maysville, Oklahoma]]
| death_date  = {{death date and age |1995|10|04 |1921|11|12}}
| death_place = 
| resting_place = 
| resting_place_coordinates =  <!--{{coord|LAT|LONG|type:landmark|display=inline,title}}-->
| other_names = 
| residence   = 
| citizenship = 
| nationality = 
| fields      = 
| workplaces  = 
| patrons     =
| alma_mater  = [[University of California, Berkeley]]
| thesis_title = Separative Measures for Topological Spaces
| thesis_url  =   <!--(or  | thesis1_url  =   and  | thesis2_url  =  )-->
| thesis_year = 1953
| doctoral_advisor = [[Anthony Perry Morse]]
| academic_advisors = 
| doctoral_students = [[Robert S. Boyer]]
| notable_students = 
| known_for   = 
| influences  = 
| influenced  = 
| awards      = {{ plainlist |
* [[File:Bronze Star ribbon.svg|30px]] [[Bronze Star Medal]] 1945, 
* [[IJCAI]] Distinguished Service Award 1991,
* [[American Mathematical Society|AMS]] Milestone Award 1991,
* [[Herbrand Award]] 1994
}} 
| author_abbrev_bot = 
| author_abbrev_zoo = 
| spouse      = Virginia (née Norgaard)
| partner     =   <!--(or | partners = )-->
| children    = 4
| signature   =   <!--(filename only)-->
| signature_alt = 
| website     =   <!--{{URL|www.example.com}}-->
| footnotes   = 
}}

'''Woodrow Wilson''' "'''Woody'''" '''Bledsoe''' (November 12, 1921 – October 4, 1995) was an American [[mathematician]], [[computer scientist]], and prominent educator. He is one of the founders of [[artificial intelligence]] (AI), making early contributions in [[pattern recognition]],<ref>{{cite journal | author=W.W. Bledsoe | title=Some Results on Multicategory Pattern Recognition | journal=[[J. ACM]] | volume=13 | number=2 | pages=304–316 | year=1966 | doi=10.1145/321328.321340| s2cid=17150326 | url=http://elartu.tntu.edu.ua/handle/lib/39646 | doi-access=free }}</ref> [[Facial recognition system|facial recognition]],<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Raviv |first=Shaun |title=The Secret History of Facial Recognition |language=en-US |magazine=Wired |url=https://www.wired.com/story/secret-history-facial-recognition/ |access-date=2023-08-31 |issn=1059-1028}}</ref> and [[automated theorem proving]].<ref>{{cite journal | author=W.W. Bledsoe | title=Splitting and Reduction Heuristics in Automatic Theorem Proving | journal=Artif. Intell. | volume=2 | number=1 | pages=55–77 | url=https://saltworks.stanford.edu/assets/yy382gv1477.pdf | year=1971 | doi=10.1016/0004-3702(71)90004-x}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | author=W.W. Bledsoe | contribution=A New Method for Proving Certain Presburger Formulas | title=Proc. IJCAI |pages=15–21 | url=http://www.ijcai.org/Proceedings/75/Papers/003.pdf | date=Sep 1975 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal| author=W.W. Bledsoe| title=Non-Resolution Theorem Proving| journal=[[Artificial Intelligence (journal)|Artificial Intelligence]]| year=1977| volume=9| pages=1–35| doi=10.1016/0004-3702(77)90012-1| citeseerx=10.1.1.455.6139}} &mdash; Preceding technical report [http://www.cs.utexas.edu/ftp/techreports/atp29a.pdf ATP29] (Sep.1975)</ref><ref>{{cite journal | author=W.W. Bledsoe and Kenneth Kunen and Robert E. Shostak | title=Completeness Results for Inequality Provers | journal=Artif. Intell. | volume=27 | number=3 | pages=255–288 | year=1985 | doi=10.1016/0004-3702(85)90015-3}} &mdash; Preceding technical report [http://www.cs.utexas.edu/ftp/techreports/atp65a.pdf  ATP65] (1983)</ref> He continued to make significant contributions to AI throughout his long career. One of his influences was [[Frank Rosenblatt]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=McCorduck |first=Pamela |title=Machines who think: a personal inquiry into the history and prospects of artificial intelligence |date=2018 |publisher=CRC Press |isbn=978-1-56881-205-2 |series=An A K Peters book |location=Boca Raton London New York |pages=106}}</ref>

Beginning in 1966, he worked at the department of mathematics and computer science of the [[University of Texas at Austin]], holding the [[Peter O'Donnell (Texas businessman)|Peter O'Donnell Jr.]] Centennial Chair in Computing Science starting in 1987.<ref name="Lassez.Plotkin.1991">{{cite book | editor1=Jean-Louis Lassez | editor2=Gordon Plotkin | editor2-link=Gordon Plotkin | title=Computational Logic &mdash; Essays in Honor of Alan Robinson | publisher=MIT Press | location=Cambridge/MA | isbn=978-0-262-12156-9 | year=1991 | title-link=John Alan Robinson }}</ref>{{rp|723}}

Bledsoe joined [[the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] as an adult, and served in the church as a [[Bishop (Latter Day Saints)|bishop]], counselor to the [[Stake (Latter Day Saints)|stake]] presidency, and stake [[Patriarch (Latter Day Saints)|patriarch]]. He also served as a leader in the [[Boy Scouts of America]].<ref>[http://www.utexas.edu/faculty/council/1998-1999/memorials/Bledsoe/bledsoe.html Memorial Resolution – Woodrow W. Bledsoe<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=UT science pioneer 'Woody' Bledsoe dies|url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AASB&p_theme=aasb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EAD97B2F7F19A6C&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM|access-date=13 March 2013|newspaper=Austin American-Statesman|date=October 6, 1995}}</ref> Bledsoe died on October 4, 1995, of [[amyotrophic lateral sclerosis]], more commonly known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.

== Works ==
The ''n''-tuple method (1959) was an early method for learning a pattern recognition program. The basic method is illustrated by the problem of [[Handwriting recognition|recognizing]] 36 alphanumerical characters (0-9, a-z).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Bledsoe |first1=W. W. |last2=Browning |first2=I. |title=Papers presented at the December 1-3, 1959, eastern joint IRE-AIEE-ACM computer conference on - IRE-AIEE-ACM '59 (Eastern) |date=1959 |chapter=Pattern recognition and reading by machine |chapter-url=http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1460299.1460326 |language=en |publisher=ACM Press |pages=225–232 |doi=10.1145/1460299.1460326|isbn=978-1-4503-7868-0 |s2cid=15672245 }}</ref>

Let the input be a 10x15 binary image. It is equivalent to a single string with 150 binary letters. Now, randomly partition the 150 binary pixels into 75 pairs. Each pair has 4 possibilities: 00, 01, 10, 11. Now we will define a 300x36 binary matrix as follows:

Let <math>1_{00}</math> represent the 00-state of the first pair, and similarly for the others. We have 300 such states, each represented in a row. The 36 columns each correspond to one alphanumerical character. The entire binary matrix is arranged as follows:<math display="block">\begin{bmatrix}
 & 0 & 1 & \cdots & 9 & a & b & \cdots & z \\
1_{00} & & & & \\
1_{01} & & & & \\
1_{10} & & & & \\
1_{11} & & & & \\
\vdots \\
75_{11} & & & & \\
\end{bmatrix}</math>The pattern recognizer is defined by the binary matrix. It is trained by firstsetting all entries to zero, then it is presented with several binary images of each alphanumerical character. For each image, the corresponding entries in the matrix are set to one, and the other entries are unchanged. This is an example of [[machine learning]].

After the training the recognizer, it can be used to recognize new images. First compute the new image's corresponding column vector, then take the dot-product with each column of the binary matrix. The column with the highest dot-product is outputted as the most likely character.

==Further reading==
* {{cite book| first1 = Anne Olivia | last1 = Boyer | first2 = Robert S. | last2 = Boyer| title=Automated Reasoning: Essays in Honor of Woody Bledsoe | url = https://archive.org/details/automatedreasoni00bled | url-access = limited |contribution=A Biographical Sketch of W. W. Bledsoe| year=1991| pages=[https://archive.org/details/automatedreasoni00bled/page/n13 1]–29| publisher=Kluwer Academic Publishers Group| isbn = 9780792314097 | editor-first = Robert S. | editor-last = Boyer| citeseerx = 10.1.1.57.3396}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Ballantyne |first=Michael |last2=Boyer |first2=Robert S. |last3=Hines |first3=Larry |date=1996 |title=Woody Bledsoe: His Life and Legacy |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1609/aimag.v17i1.1207 |journal=AI Magazine |language=en |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=7–20 |doi=10.1609/aimag.v17i1.1207 |issn=2371-9621}}

==Selected publications==
*{{cite journal| author=W.W. Bledsoe| title=Non-Resolution Theorem Proving| journal=[[Artificial Intelligence (journal)|Artificial Intelligence]]| year=1977| volume=9| pages=1–35| doi=10.1016/0004-3702(77)90012-1| citeseerx=10.1.1.455.6139}}
*{{cite journal | author1=W.W. Bledsoe |author2= I. Browning| title=Pattern Recognition and Reading by Machine | journal=Papers Presented at the December 1–3, 1959, Eastern Joint IRE-AIEE-ACM Computer Conference |series=IRE-AIEE-ACM '59 (Eastern) | pages=225–232 | year=1959 |doi=10.1145/1460299.1460326|s2cid= 15672245| doi-access=free }}
*{{cite journal | author=Woody Bledsoe | title=I Had a Dream: AAAI Presidential Address, 19 August 1985 | journal=AI Magazine | volume=7 | number=1 | pages=57–61 | year=1986 |url=http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/528/464}}

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
* [https://digitalcollections.briscoecenter.org/collection/477272 Papers and program printouts pertaining to Bledsoe's facial recognition algorithm of the 1960s]
* {{DBLP}}
* [https://www.chessprogramming.org/Woodrow_W._Bledsoe W.W. Bledsoe] at the [[chess programming]] wiki

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bledsoe, Woody}}
[[Category:1921 births]]
[[Category:1995 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American mathematicians]]
[[Category:American computer scientists]]
[[Category:20th-century American educators]]
[[Category:American leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]]
[[Category:American artificial intelligence researchers]]
[[Category:Converts to Mormonism]]
[[Category:Patriarchs (LDS Church)]]
[[Category:People from Maysville, Oklahoma]]
[[Category:University of Texas at Austin faculty]]
[[Category:Mathematicians from Oklahoma]]
[[Category:Latter Day Saints from Oklahoma]]
[[Category:Latter Day Saints from Texas]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence]]


{{US-compu-bio-stub}}
{{US-academic-scientist-stub}}
{{LDS-bio-stub}}