Editing Lotfi A. Zadeh (section)

==Early life and career==
=== Azerbaijan ===
Zadeh was born in [[Baku]], [[Azerbaijan SSR]],<!--DO NOT ADD "SOVIET UNION" HERE, PLEASE READ FOOTNOTE--><ref>At this time, the [[Azerbaijan SSR]] was an independent republic, created by the [[Red Army]]. It would become part of the [[Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic]] in March 1922, and then part of the [[Soviet Union]] in December 1922.</ref> as '''Lotfi Aliasgerzadeh'''.<ref name=FL17>[[#McNeil|McNeil & Freiberger]], p. 17</ref> His father was Rahim Aleskerzade, an [[Iranian Azerbaijanis|Iranian Muslim Azerbaijani]]<ref>Blair, Betty (winter 1994) "Interview with Lotfi Zadeh" Azerbaijan International. "Obstinacy and tenacity. Not being afraid to get embroiled in controversy. That's very much a Turkish tradition. That's part of my character, too"
http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/24_folder/24_articles/24_fuzzylogic.html</ref> journalist from [[Ardabil]] on assignment from Iran, and his mother was Fanya (Feyga<ref name="visions.az-Samad-Zadeh">{{cite magazine |last1=Samad |first1=Mohbaddin |title=A Phenomenon in Modern Science or Who Are You Lotfi Zadeh? |url=http://www.visions.az/en/news/49/2bbd742d/ |access-date=30 November 2021 |magazine=Visions of Azerbaijan Magazine |volume=4 |issue=2 |date=Summer 2009 |language=en |quote=...mother Feyga and wife Faina...wife Faina, son Norman and daughter Stella...mother Feyga, father Rahim...(Mohbaddin Samad is the screen writer of the documentary film Far and Near Lotfi Zadeh (in Azerbaijani and English) and the author of a book about Lotfi Zadeh, The World Cannot Survive Without Geniuses)}}</ref>) Korenman, a [[Jewish]] [[pediatrician]] from [[Odesa, Ukraine]], who was an Iranian citizen.<ref name="ScienceDirect.com 2015">{{cite journal |title=Fuzzy logic—a personal perspective |date=2015-05-21 |doi=10.1016/j.fss.2015.05.009 |volume=281 |pages=4–20 |journal=Fuzzy Sets and Systems| last1=Zadeh |first1=Lotfi A.}}</ref><ref>[http://www.jinfo.org/Computer_Info_Science.html "Jews in Computer & Information Science"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513125715/http://www.jinfo.org/Computer_Info_Science.html |date=2013-05-13 }} on the JINFO.org website</ref><ref>[http://alamjurnal.com/stati/262-zhanet-selimova Анвар Унугви "Жанет Селимова"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714193842/http://alamjurnal.com/stati/262-zhanet-selimova |date=2014-07-14 }} (Memoirs of Lotfi A. Zadeh's cousin in Baku, theatrical director, professor Zhanet Selimova).</ref><ref name=bookrags>Gale, Thomson. [http://www.bookrags.com/biography/lotfi-asker-zadeh-wcs/ Lotfi Asker Zadeh Biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100115180256/http://www.bookrags.com/biography/lotfi-asker-zadeh-wcs/ |date=2010-01-15 }} ''World of Computer Science''</ref> The Soviet government at this time courted foreign correspondents, and the family lived well while in Baku.<ref name=FL18>[[#McNeil|McNeil & Freiberger]], p. 18</ref> Zadeh attended elementary school for three years there,<ref name=FL18 /> which he said "had a significant and long-lasting influence on my thinking and my way of looking at things."<ref name=blair99>{{cite magazine | last1 = Blair | first1 = Betty | date = Winter 1994 | url = https://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/74_folder/74.articles/74_zadeh.html | title = Famous People: Then and Now {{!}} Lotfi Zadeh | magazine = [[Azerbaijan International]] | pages = 28–29 | volume = 2 | issue = 4 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20231208181813/https://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/74_folder/74.articles/74_zadeh.html | archive-date = 2023-12-08 | access-date = 2024-02-06 | issn = 1075-086X | quote = What experiences and interests in childhood would you say shaped your life and career? I went through the first three grades of elementary school in Baku. Those three years - from age 7 to 10 - had a significant and long-lasting influence on my thinking and my way of looking at things.}}</ref>

=== Iran ===
In 1931, when Stalin began agricultural collectivization,<ref name="visions.az-Samad-Zadeh"/> and Zadeh was ten, his father moved his family back to [[Tehran]], Iran. Zadeh was enrolled in [[Alborz High School]], a missionary school,<ref name="visions.az-Samad-Zadeh"/> where he was educated for the next eight years, and where he met his future wife,<ref name=FL18 /> Fay (Faina<ref name="visions.az-Samad-Zadeh"/>) Zadeh, who said that he was "deeply influenced" by the "extremely decent, fine, honest and helpful" [[Presbyterian church|Presbyterian]] missionaries from the United States who ran the college. "To me they represented the best that you could find in the United States – people from the Midwest with strong roots. They were really 'Good Samaritans' – willing to give of themselves for the benefit of others. So this kind of attitude influenced me deeply. It also instilled in me a deep desire to live in the United States."<ref name=blair99 /> During this time, Zadeh was awarded several [[patents]].<ref name=FL18 />

Zadeh sat for the Iran national university exams and placed third in the nation.<ref name=FL18 /> As a student, he ranked first in his class in his first two years. In 1942, he graduated from the [[University of Tehran]] with a degree in [[electrical engineering]], one of only three students in that field to graduate that year, due to the turmoil created by [[World War II]], when the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Iran. Over 30,000 American soldiers were based there, and Zadeh worked with his father, who did business with them as a contractor for hardware and building materials.<ref name=FL19>[[#McNeil|McNeil & Freiberger]], p. 19</ref>

=== United States ===
In 1943, Zadeh decided to leave for the United States to continue his education.<ref name="visions.az-Samad-Zadeh"/> He travelled to [[Philadelphia]] by way of [[Cairo]] after months of delay waiting first for the proper papers and later for the right ship to appear.{{citation needed|date=December 2021}} He arrived in mid-1944, lived in New York and worked for an electronic association,<ref name="visions.az-Samad-Zadeh"/> and entered the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] (MIT) as a graduate student in September that year.<ref name=FL19 /><ref name="visions.az-Samad-Zadeh"/> While in the United States, he shortened his family name, creating a new middle name from the part he removed, and was thenceforth known as Lotfi Aliasker Zadeh.<ref name=FL17 /> He received an [[Master of Science|MS degree]] in electrical engineering from MIT in 1946.

In 1947, as his parents had settled in [[New York City]], Zadeh went to work as an engineer at Columbia University.<ref name="visions.az-Samad-Zadeh"/> Zadeh then applied to [[Columbia University]].<ref name=FL19 /><ref name="visions.az-Samad-Zadeh"/> Columbia admitted him as a doctoral student and offered him an instructorship as well.<ref name=FL19 /> He received his [[PhD]] in electrical engineering from Columbia in 1949 and became an assistant professor the next year.<ref name=bookrags/><ref name=FL19 /> Zadeh taught for ten years at Columbia and was promoted to [[full professor]] in 1957.

The chairman of the electronic engineering department at the University of California, wrote and offered him work.<ref name="visions.az-Samad-Zadeh"/> In 1959, Zadeh joined the Electrical Engineering faculty at the [[University of California, Berkeley]]. During his lengthy research career, Zadeh made important scientific contributions in two distinct areas: (1) linear system theory and classical control systems, and (2) fuzzy sets, fuzzy logic, and related science and technology.

Zadeh was awarded a [[List of Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 1967|Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967]] for Natural Sciences in Applied Mathematics.<ref name="gf.org-fellows-Zadeh">{{cite web |title=Lotfi A. Zadeh |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/lotfi-a-zadeh/ |website=[[John Simon Guggenheim Foundation]] |access-date=30 November 2021}}</ref>

Zadeh's first important research contribution, well known among scholars of his generation in the electrical engineering community, was in the area of classical control systems. His pioneer work, co-authored with [[Charles Desoer]], ''Linear System Theory: The State Space Approach,'' laid a critical foundation for all modern approaches to system analysis and control.<ref>Zadeh, Lotfi and Desoer, Charles, ''Linear System Theory: The State Space Approach,'' Courier Dover Publications, 2008 (reprint).</ref> The second and more well-known contribution of Zadeh's research is his lifelong dedication to the creation, enhancement and the real-world impacts of a broad collection of science and technology based on fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic. He published his seminal work on [[fuzzy sets]] in 1965, in which he described the motivation of replicating human-like reasoning and detailed the mathematics of fuzzy set theory.

In 1973 he proposed his theory of [[fuzzy logic]]. Together, fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic provide the necessary foundations for a broad class of related innovations, including (but not limited to):
* fuzzy control – a practical approach to non-linear control using fuzzy if-then rules in fuzzy logic
* fuzzy pattern recognition – a generalization of conventional pattern recognition techniques using fuzzy sets (e.g., fuzzy k-means generalizes k-means clustering)
* fuzzy database – generalizes classical database query language using fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic
* fuzzy mathematics – generalizes conventional mathematics using fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic
* [[neuro-fuzzy]] systems – a synergistic combination of fuzzy logic and neural networks, providing the first interpretable AI system based on neural network learning

He was also on the Board of Governors for International Neural Network Society (INNS) in 2003.