When Computer Science Emerged and Fuzzy Sets Appeared: The Contributions of Lotfi A. Zadeh and Other Pioneers

In the 1960s, the discipline of computer science(CS) emerged from electrical engineering (EE) and research fields in mathematics and mathematical logic. Around the same time, fuzzy sets (FSs) appeared as a new mathematical theory, founded by the electrical engineer Lotfi Aliasker Zadeh. Some unpublished documents of Zadeh´s show that the emergence of CS and the theory of FSs were interlinked. Zadeh´s task as chair of the EE Department at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB); his activities in the education of mathematics, EE, system theory, information theory (IT), and CSs; and his creation of the theory of FSs generated his view and choice of contents for the new discipline of CS as an FS.