Abstract :
I first met Lotfi Zadeh when I started work at GWU around 1970. He was an advisor to GWU s School of Engineering and Applied Science, and was a revered and well liked figure. Lotfi gave us a seminar wherein he challenged the Kolmogorov Axioms of Probability. Since I was hired at GWU to teach probability and statistics to engineering students, I felt compelled to react to the challenge. Lotfi gracefully listened to me, and in his characteristic calm demeanor defended his viewpoints using arguments that fell on deaf ears. These ears remained deaf until about 1998 when (the late) Tom Bement, Jane Booker and Sallie Keller, who were then at Los Alamos, asked me to look at fuzzy sets, membership functions and the possibility theory, on the grounds that they were being forcefully touted by the engineering community.
