Harold Abelson (born April 26, 1947) is an American mathematician and computer scientist. He is a professor of computer science and engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT), a founding director of both

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

and the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

, creator of the MIT App Inventor platform, and co-author of the widely-used textbook '' Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs'' (SICP), sometimes also referred to as "the wizard book" because of its cover illustration. He directed the first implementation of the language

Logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name that it represents, as in ...

for the

Apple II Apple II ("apple Roman numerals, two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The Apple II (original), original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was designed ...

, which made the language widely available on personal computers starting in 1981; and published a widely selling book on Logo in 1982. Together with Gerald Jay Sussman, Abelson developed MIT's introductory computer science subject, "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" (often referred to by the MIT course number, 6.001), a subject organized around the idea that a computer language is primarily a formal medium for expressing ideas about methodology, rather than just a way to get a computer to perform operations. Abelson and Sussman also cooperate in codirecting the MIT Project on Mathematics and Computation. The

MIT OpenCourseWare MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to publish all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, freely and openly available to anyone, anywh ...

(OCW) project was spearheaded by Abelson and other MIT faculty. Abelson led an internal investigation of MIT's choices and role in the prosecution of

Aaron Swartz Aaron Hillel Swartz (; November 8, 1986January 11, 2013), also known as AaronSw, was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivism, hacktivist. As a programmer, Swartz helped develop the we ...

by the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

(FBI), which concluded that MIT did nothing wrong legally, but recommended that MIT consider changing some of its internal policies.

Education

Abelson graduated with a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in mathematics from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1969 after completing a senior thesis on ''Actions with fixed-point set: a homology sphere'', supervised by William Browder. He received his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in mathematics from the

in 1973 after completing his research on ''Topologically distinct conjugate varieties with finite fundamental group'' supervised by

Dennis Sullivan Dennis Parnell Sullivan (born February 12, 1941) is an American mathematician known for his work in algebraic topology, geometric topology, and dynamical systems. He holds the Albert Einstein Chair at the Graduate Center of the City University ...

Career and research

Abelson is also a founding director of

and Public Knowledge, and a director of the

Center for Democracy and Technology Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is a Washington, D.C.–based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that advocates for digital rights and freedom of expression. CDT seeks to promote legislation that enables individuals to use the Internet for ...

Computer science education

Abelson has a longstanding interest in using computation as a conceptual framework in teaching. He directed the first implementation of

for the

, which made the language widely available on personal computers starting in 1981; and published a widely selling book on Logo in 1982. His book ''Turtle Geometry,'' written with Andrea diSessa in 1981, presented a computational approach to geometry which has been cited as "the first step in a revolutionary change in the entire teaching/learning process." In March 2015, a copy of Abelson's 1969 implementation of Turtle graphics was sold at The Algorithm Auction, the world’s first auction of computer

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

s. Together with Gerald Jay Sussman, Abelson developed MIT's introductory computer science subject, '' Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs,'' a subject organized around the notion that a computer language is primarily a formal medium for expressing ideas about methodology, rather than just a way to get a computer to perform operations. This work, through the textbook of the same name, videotapes of their lectures, and the availability on personal computers of the Scheme dialect of

Lisp Lisp (historically LISP, an abbreviation of "list processing") is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish notation#Explanation, prefix notation. Originally specified in the late 1950s, ...

(used in teaching the course), has had a worldwide impact on university computer science education. He is a visiting faculty member at Google, where he was part of the '' App Inventor for Android'' team, an educational program aiming to make it easy for people with no programming background to write mobile phone applications and "explore whether this could change the nature of introductory computing". He is coauthor of the book ''App Inventor'' with David Wolber, Ellen Spertus, and Liz Looney, published by O'Reilly Media in 2011. After Google released App Inventor as open source software in late 2009 and provided seed funding to the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

in 2011, Abelson became codirector of the MIT Center for Mobile Learning to continue development of App Inventor.

Computing tools

Abelson and Sussman also cooperate in codirecting the MIT Project on Mathematics and Computation, a project of the

MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

(CSAIL), formerly a joint project of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (AI Lab) and MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS), CSAIL's components. The goal of the project is to create better computational tools for scientists and engineers. But even with powerful numerical computers, exploring complex physical systems still requires substantial human effort and human judgement to prepare simulations and to interpret numerical results. Together with their students, Abelson and Sussman are combining methods from

numerical computation Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of numerical methods t ...

, symbolic algebra, and

heuristic A heuristic or heuristic technique (''problem solving'', '' mental shortcut'', ''rule of thumb'') is any approach to problem solving that employs a pragmatic method that is not fully optimized, perfected, or rationalized, but is nevertheless ...

programming to develop programs that not only perform massive numerical computations, but that also interpret these computations and ''discuss'' the results in qualitative terms. Programs such as these could form the basis for intelligent scientific instruments that monitor physical systems based upon high-level behavioral descriptions. More generally, they could lead to a new generation of computational tools that can autonomously explore complex physical systems, and which will play an important part in the future practice of science and engineering. At the same time, these programs incorporate computational formulations of scientific knowledge that can form the foundations of better ways to teach science and engineering.

Free software movement

Abelson and Sussman have also been a part of the

free software movement The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for user (computing), software users, namely the freedoms to run, study, modify, and share copies of software. Software which meets thes ...

(FSM), including serving on the

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

of the

(FSF). Abelson is known to have been involved in publishing Andrew Huang's ''Hacking the Xbox'' and Keith Winstein's seven-line

Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed ...

DeCSS script (named qrpff), and Library Access to Music Project (LAMP), MIT's campus-wide music distribution system. The

(OCW) project was spearheaded by Hal Abelson and other MIT faculty.

Aaron Swartz investigation

In January 2013,

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

activist

died by suicide. He had been arrested near MIT and was facing up to 35 years imprisonment for the alleged crime of downloading ''Journal Storage'' (

JSTOR JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary source ...

) articles through MIT's ''open access'' campus network. In response, MIT appointed professor Hal Abelson to lead an internal investigation of the school's choices and role in the prosecution of

by the FBI. The report was delivered on July 26, 2013. It concluded that MIT did nothing wrong legally, but recommended that MIT consider changing some of its internal policies.

Awards and honors

* Designated as one of MIT's six inaugural MacVicar Faculty Fellows, in 1992, in recognition of his significant and sustained contributions to teaching and undergraduate education * 1992 Bose Award, the MIT School of Engineering teaching award * 1995 Taylor L. Booth Education Award, given by

IEEE Computer Society IEEE Computer Society (commonly known as the Computer Society or CS) is a technical society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) dedicated to computing, namely the major areas of hardware, software, standards and people ...

, cited for his continued contributions to the pedagogy and teaching of introductory computer science * 2011 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award for "his contribution to computing education, through his innovative advances in curricula designed for students pursuing different kinds of computing expertise, and for his leadership in the movement for open educational resources" * 2012

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

(ACM) SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education

Publications

* '' Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs'' * ''Turtle Geometry: The Computer As a Medium for Exploring Mathematics'' * ''Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion'' * ''App Inventor 2: Create Your Own Android Apps''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abelson, Hal American computer scientists American artificial intelligence researchers Lisp (programming language) people Programming language designers 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American mathematicians Jewish American scientists American electrical engineers Princeton University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni MIT School of Engineering faculty Members of the Free Software Foundation board of directors Fellows of the IEEE Free software programmers GNU people Living people Members of the Creative Commons board of directors Google employees 1947 births American computer science educators Creative Commons-licensed authors Place of birth missing (living people)