Herbert A. Simon

**Herbert Alexander "Herb" Simon** (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American economist, political scientist and cognitive psychologist. He was best known for the theories of "bounded rationality" and "satisficing". He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1978 and the Turing Award in 1975. Simon is the first person to win both a Turing Award and a Nobel Prize.

## Career

Simon was an important person in several modern-day scientific works such as artificial intelligence, information processing, decision-making, problem-solving, organization theory, and complex systems. He was one of the first people to analyze the architecture of preferential attachment.

He was at Carnegie Mellon University for most of his career, from 1949 to 2001, where he helped found the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, one of the first such departments in the world.

Simon received many top-level honors in life, including becoming a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1959. He was elected as a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1967.

## Personal life

Herbert Alexander Simon was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 15, 1916. He studied at the University of Chicago where he earned his BA and PhD degrees.

Simon married Dorothea Pye in 1938. Their marriage lasted 63 years until his death. They had three children.

In January 2001, Simon had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his abdomen. He later died from problems caused by surgery on February 9, 2001 at the age of 84.

## More readings

- Courtois, P.J., 1977. _Decomposability: queueing and computer system applications_. New York: Academic Press. Courtois was influenced by the work of Simon and Albert Ando on hierarchical nearly-decomposable systems in economic modelling as a criterion for computer systems design, and in this book he presents the mathematical theory of these nearly-decomposable systems in more detail than Simon and Ando do in their original papers.
- Frantz, R., and Marsh, L. (Eds.) (2016). _Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon_. Palgrave Macmillan.

## Other websites

- A Tribute to Herbert A. Simon
- Full-text digital archive of Herbert Simon papers
- Mind Models online Artificial Intelligence exhibit
- pioneering research into the decision-making process within economic organizations
- History of Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science  BOOK VIII: Herbert Simon, Paul Thagard and Others on Discovery Systems – with free downloads for public use.

## Infobox (scientist)

- **birth name**: Herbert Alexander Simon
- **name**: Herbert A. Simon
- **image**: Herbert Simon, RIT NandE Vol13Num11 1981 Mar19 Complete.jpg
- **birth place**: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
- **death place**: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
- **citizenship**: United States
- **children**: 3
- **field**: Economics
Artificial intelligence
Computer science
Political science
- **work institutions**: Carnegie Mellon University
- **education**: University of Chicago
(B.A., 1936; Ph.D., 1943)
- **doctoral advisor**: Henry Schultz
- **academic advisors**: Rudolf Carnap
Nicholas Rashevsky
Harold Lasswell
Charles Merriam
John R. Commons
- **doctoral students**: Edward Feigenbaum
Allen Newell
Richard Waldinger
John Muth
William F. Pounds
- **influences**: Richard T. Ely, John R. Commons, Henry George, Chester Barnard, Charles Merriam, Yuji Ijiri,  William W. Cooper, Richard Cyert, James G. March
- **influenced**: Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, Gerd Gigerenzer, James March, Allen Newell, Philip E. Tetlock, Richard Thaler, John Muth, Oliver E. Williamson, Massimo Egidi, Vela Velupillai, Ha Joon Chang, William C. Wimsatt, Alok Bhargava, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Yuji Ijiri, William W. Cooper, Richard Cyert,  James G. March
- **known for**: Bounded rationality
Satisficing
Information Processing Language
Logic Theorist
General Problem Solver