Add MS 84121

Two original card folders. Correspondence concerning access and use of the libraries of University College London and of University College Hospital Medical School: Joseph Scott and Lloyd Morgan, 1967-1968. Another correspondent is J. A. E. Taylor of the Science Research Council, 1970. Reprint articles and cuttings, from which the following keywords have been obtained: universals, game-learning machines, pattern recognition, simulation of thinking, artificial intelligence, mechanical chessman, the Homeostat, Design for a Brain, Machina speculatrix, UNIVAC, Machine-Man with emotions, chess, electrical logic machine. Key names include: Ablow, William Ross Ashby, Block, Burack, Eckert, Waldemar Kaempffert, Kaylor, Benoit Mandelbrot, Mauchly, Warren McCulloch, Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell, Walter Pitts, Paul I. Richards, Charles A. Rosen, Claude E. Shannon, Herbert A. Simon, Paul R. Stein, Grey Walter.

Card folder 1 'UCL Library'

1. Letter, typescript with signature in blue ballpoint (1 f), 13 May 1968, from Joseph W. Scott, Librarian, The Library, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1, to George Price, P. O. Box 4 PF, London W1, thanking him for 'your generous and friendly letter…'.

2. Letter, carbon copy typescript (1 f), 16 December 1970, from George Price, to Dr J. A. E. Taylor, Secretary for the Biological Sciences Committee, Science Research Council, State House, High Holborn, London WC1.

3. Letter, typescript with signature in blue ballpoint (1 f), 14 December 1967, from Joseph W. Scott, Librarian, The Library, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1, to George Price of 159 Whitfield Street, London W1. The letter grants him admission to the library 'as an outside reader to the College Library', and adds the following note: 'You will find that some of the Ogden material is not yet on open shelves in the Library, and as his most important writings on “word magic” intend to occur in his own 18 volumes of Psyche, you will have to ask assistants at the Issue Desk to produce these for you.'

4. Letter, carbon copy typescript (1 f), 10 May 1968, from George Price, P. O. Box 4 PF, London W1, to Joseph W. Scott, Librarian, University College London. The letter begins: 'Dear Mr. Scott, Your letter of December 14, 1967, giving me permission to use the University College Library (and giving advice on the Ogden collection), was very much appreciated at that time – but is still more appreciated now because it has turned out that I have used your library more than any other, and I like it very much. The largest part of my work has been in Chaucer, but I’ve also used most of the collections in the main building. Altogether, I’ve worked in fourteen different libraries in London, but your library has been my main stand-by; and when I reflect upon the question of how I could have been so foolish as to rent this flat, my principal consolation is to tell myself, 'Well, at least it’s extremely close to University College'. The letter ends: 'Thank you very, very much (since in London one says “Thank you very much” for a glass of water) for your kindness.'

5. Letter, photocopy (1 f), 15 January 1968, from George Price, P. O. Box 4 PF, London W1, to Lloyd Morgan, Secretary, University College Hospital Medical School, University Street, London WC1, requesting permission to use the library of the University College Hospital Medical School.

6. Letter, carbon copy typescript (1 f), 12 December 1967, from George Price, 159 Whitfield Street, London W1, to J. W. Scott, Librarian, University College London, requesting permission to use the UCL library.

7. Notes for report, carbon copy typescript (1 f), headed 'SRC Research Grant Report for George Price, Suggestions about what to say (March 26th)'.

Card folder 2 'Automation – Papers on', containing a series of reprints and similar published articles.

1. Article reprint, 'How we know universals. The perception of auditory and visual forms' by Walter Pitts and Warren S. McCulloch, Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, 9 (1947), with annotations in red pencil.

2. Article reprint, 'On Game-Learning Machines' by Paul I. Richards, The Scientific Monthly 74:4 (1952), with annotations in dark blue ink and pencil.

3. Articles, photocopy (4 ff). 'A committee Solution of the Pattern Recognition Problem' by C. M. Ablow and D. J. Kaylor, followed by 'Leo Szilard and Unique Decipherability' by Benoit Mandelbrot, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, dated 1965 or later.

4. Article reprint, 'Learning in some simple non-biological systems' by H. D. Block, American Scientist, 53 (1965).

5. 'Pattern Classification by Adaptive Machines. Patterns are categorized by the use of fixed and adaptive networks'. By Charles A. Rosen, Science, 156 (1967).

6. 'Computer Simulation of Human Thinking. A theory of problem solving expressed as a computer program permits simulation of thinking processes' by Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon, Science, 134 (1961).

7. Article reprint, 'A Selected Descriptor-Indexed Bibliography to the Literature on Artificial Intelligence' by Marvin Minsky, IRE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics (1961). With markings in pencil, particularly to items in the bibliography.

8. Article reprint, 'Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence' by Marvin Minsky, Proceedings of the IRE, 49 (1961).

9. Article reprint, 'The functional organization of the cerebral cortex' by Warren McCulloch, Physiological Reviews, 24 (1944).

10. Newspaper cutting, Science in Review by Waldemar Kaempffert, with two columns highlighted with red pencil: 'Mechanical Chessman. Machine can "Judge" if Opponent is Bold or Timid Player', and 'Burns Are Treated With N-Butanol', 4 March 1951, probably New York Times, page E9.

11. Article page, incomplete, an article by Paul R. Stein of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory reviewing the book Design for a Brain by William Ross Ashby: 'The treatment culminates in a description of a rather fascinating machine – the “Homeostat” – whose behaviour beautifully illustrates the author’s theoretical construction'. 'The underlying philosophy of Design for a Brain is that the goal of existence is homeostasis, or perfect adaptation to environment', Physics Today (1954).

12. Article pages, 'A Machine That Learns. Concerning Machina docilis, descendant of Machina speculatrix, the small imitation of life that was described in the May, 1950, issue of this magazine' by W. Grey Walter, Scientific American.

13. Bibliographic note, pencil (1 f) 'Paul I Richards, On Game-Learning Machines. Sci Month April 52 p. 201. From Brookhaven' in the hand of George Price.

14. Magazine cutting, with a column entitled 'Sublime and Ridiculous' reporting on BINAC, invented by J. Presper Eckert Jr and John W. Mauchly, and 'hailed as the first electronic brain compact and simple enough for use in industrial laboratories'. 'The next project on the Eckert-Mauchly agenda is UNIVAC', 29 August 1949, possibly from Science.

15. Newspaper cutting, with column entitled 'Gus, the Machine-Man With Emotions', initialled W. K. (?Waldemar Kaempffert).

16. Newspaper cutting, 'Science in Review' by Waldemar Kaempffert, with principal column entitled 'What Next in the Attributes of Machines? It Might Be Power to Reproduce Themselves'.

17. Newspaper cutting, with column entitled 'Chess by Machine. At Last the Human Mind Can be Eliminated in the Game', pencil annotation indicates New York Times, 24 December 1950.

18. Pamphlet, 'Just Between Us' (Northwestern Bell Telephone Company): 'Down at Bell Telephone Laboratories at Murray Hill, New Jersey, they have a marvellous mouse… with a “brain” that enables him to thread his way through a series of complicated mazes. Actually, he is an electrical mouse made from a two-inch bar magnet with three wheels in place of legs and a pair of copper wire whiskers'. 'Claude E. Shannon… is responsible for the mouse’s “brain”…'.

19. Slip (1 f), bibliographic reference, “BURACK, B. Electrical logic machine. References. Science, v.109, pp. 610-611. June 17, 1949”.