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Herbert Simon (June 15, 1916–February 9,
2001) was a researcher in the fields of cognitive
psychology, computer science, public
administration, economics and philosophy
(sometimes described as a polymath). 

He was awarded the Association for Computing
Machinery|ACM's Turing Award|A.M. Turing Award
along with Allen Newell in 1975 for making "basic
contributions to artificial intelligence, the
psychology of human cognition, and list
processing." In 1978 he was awarded The Bank of
Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of
Alfred Nobel| Nobel Prize in Economics "for his
pioneering research into the decision-making
process within economic organizations". He
invented the terms bounded rationality and
satisficing.

He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1916.  He
received his B.S. in 1936 from the University of
Chicago, where he was a member of the debate team.
He earning a Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D. in
Political Science from the University of Chicago
in 1942 with his disseration in public
administration.  His disseration was published as
Administrative Behavior, the book upon which his
pioneering concepts and his Nobel Prize were
based.  He had positions at University of
California, Berkeley|Berkeley and the Illinois
Institute of Technology.  From 1949 until his
death, Simon served on the faculty of Carnegie
Mellon University, pioneering the quantitative
modeling of human behavior through research in a
variety of fields.  

Simon was a pioneer in the field of artificial
intelligence, creating with Allen Newell the Logic
Theory Machine (1956) and the General Problem
Solver (GPS) (1957) programs.  GPS was possibly
the first method of separating problem solving
strategy from information about particular
problems. Both programs were developed using the
Information Processing Language (1956) developed
by Newell, Cliff Shaw and Simon. 

He was awarded the Association for Computing
Machinery|ACM's Turing Award|A.M. Turing Award
along with Allen Newell in 1975 for "In joint
scientific efforts extending over twenty years,
initially in collaboration with Cliff Shaw|J. C.
(Cliff) Shaw at the RAND Corporation, and
subsequentially with numerous faculty and student
colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University, they
have made basic contributions to artificial
intelligence, the psychology of human cognition,
and list processing."

While living in Pittsburgh, PA, he advised the
citizenry on various issues including the use of
public funds to build stadiums and the method of
raising tax revenue. Simon emphasized the
usefulness of the land tax, reflecting the early
influence of Henry George on his economic thought.

==Interesting quote==
Most producers are employees, not owners of the
firms..... Viewed from the vantage point of
classical economic theory, they have no reason to
maximize the profits of the firms, except to the
extent that they can be controlled by owners....
Moreover, there is no difference, in this respect,
among profit-making firms, non-profit
organizations, and bureaucratic organizations. All
have exactly the same problem of inducing their
employees to work toward the organizational goals.
There is no reason, a priori, why it should be
easier (or harder) to produce this motivation in
organizations aimed at maximizing profits than in
organizations with different goals. The conclusion
that organization motivated by profits will be
more efficient than other organizations does not
follow the organizational economy from the
neo-classical assumptions. If it is empirically
true, other axioms will have to be introduced to
account for it.

==Selected bibliography==
*Administrative Behavior 1947
*Models of Man 1957
*Models of Discovery 1977
*Models of Thought 1979, 1989
*Models of Bounded Rationality 1982
*Models of My Life 1991
*The Sciences of the Artificial (3rd Edition) 1996

==Reference==
H. Simon, "Organizations and markets," Journal of
Economic Perspectives, vol. 5, no. 2 (1991), p.
28.

==External link==
*http://www.psy.cmu.edu/psy/faculty/hsimon/hsimon.
html Herbert Simon's departmental web pages at
Carnegie Mellon University as they were at the
time of his death in 2001
*http://werdet.atspace.com/bin/simonntation-speech
.html pioneering research into the decision-making
process within economic organizations