A Very Brief History of Soft Computing:

Fuzzy Sets, Artificial Neural Networks and Evolutionary Computation

Rudolf Seising

Marco Elio Tabacchi

European Centre for Soft Computing

Edificio de Investigatin
Calle Gonzalo Gutirrez Quirs S/N
33600 Mieres, Asturias
rudolf.seising@softcomputing.es

DMI, Universit degli Studi di Palermo

and Istituto Nazionale di Ricerche Demopolis, Italy
Via Archirafi, 34
90123 Palermo, Italy
tabacchi@unipa.it

Abstract - This paper gives a brief presentation of history of Soft

Computing considered as a mix of three scientific disciplines that
arose in the mid of the 20th century: Fuzzy Sets and Systems, Neural
Networks, and Evolutionary Computation. The paper shows the
genesis and the historical development of the three disciplines and also
their meeting in a coalition in the 1990s.

ability of the human mind to effectively employ modes of

reasoning that are approximate rather than exact and he
explicated: In traditional hard computing, the prime
desiderata are precision, certainty, and rigor. By contrast, the point
of departure in soft computing is the thesis that precision and
certainty carry a cost and that computation, reasoning, and
decision making should exploit wherever possible the
tolerance for imprecision and uncertainty. [...] Somewhat later,
neural network techniques combined with fuzzy logic began to be
employed in a wide variety of consumer products, endowing such
products with the capability to adapt and learn from experience.
[...] Underlying this evolution was an acceleration in the
employment of soft computing and especially fuzzy logic in
the conception and design of intelligent systems that can exploit
the tolerance for imprecision and uncertainty, learn from
experience, and adapt to changes in the operation conditions. [2]
The segments of SC came into existence largely independent of
each other in the second half of the 20th century. They have the
common property of imitating structures or behavior in nature in
order to optimize certain processes of problem solving where
problems either cannot be resolved with the help of classical
mathematics or can only be solved with great difficulty: Fuzzy sets
and probabilistic reasoning simulate human reasoning and
communication; Artificial neural networks are geared to the
structure of living brains; Genetic and evolutionary computation
and programming are geared to biological evolution.
In the following sections we will present brief surveys of the
three above-named segments of SC and in the concluding section
we will give a short outlook on the future of Soft Computing.

I. INTRODUCTION
Today, computing and computers are used in all disciplines of
science and technology and as well in social sciences and
humanities. Computing and computers are used to find exact
solutions of scientific problems on the basis of two-valued logic
and classical mathematics. However, not all problems can be
resolved with methods of usual mathematics. As Lotfi A. Zadeh,
the founder of the theory of Fuzzy Sets, mentioned many times
over the last decades, humans are able to resolve tasks of high
complexity without measurements or computations. In conclusion,
he stated that thinking machines i.e. computers as they were
named in their starting period do not think as humans do.
The Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence that
was organized by John McCarthy in 1955 initiated the research
program of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In the proposal to this
project was written that AI research will proceed on the basis of
the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of
intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a
machine can be made to simulate it [1].
The proximate development AI research is a story of several
successes but has yet lagged behind expectations. AI became a
field of research to build computers and computer programs that
act intelligently although no human being controls those
systems. AI techniques became methods to compute with numbers
and find exact solutions. However, not all problems can be
resolved with these methods. On the other hand, humans are able
to resolve such tasks very well. Therefore, Zadeh focused from the
mid-1980s on Making Computers Think like People [2]. For this
purpose, the machines ability to compute with numbers that
is named here as hard computing has to be supplemented by
an additional ability more similar to human thinking, that is named
here as soft computing.
In the 1980s Zadeh explained what might be referred to as
soft computing and, in particular, fuzzy logic to mimic the

II. FUZZY SETS

In 1959 Lotfi A. Zadeh had become professor of Electrical
Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and in the
course of writing the book Linear System Theory: The State Space
Approach [3] with his colleague Charles A. Desoer, he began to
feel that complex systems cannot be dealt with effectively by the
use of conventional approaches largely because the description
languages based on classical mathematics are not sufficiently
expressive to serve as a means of characterization of input-output
relations in an environment of imprecision, uncertainty and
incompleteness of information. [4] There were two ways to

Work leading to this paper was partially supported by the Foundation for the Advancement of Soft Computing Mieres, Asturias (Spain).

978-1-4799-0348-1/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

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overcome this situation. In order to describe the actual systems

appropriately, he could have tried to increase the mathematical
precision even further, but Zadeh failed with this course of action.
The other way presented itself to Zadeh in the year 1964, when he
discovered how he could describe real systems as they appeared to
people. Im always sort of gravitated toward something that
would be closer to the real world [5]. In order to provide a
mathematically exact expression of experimental research with real
systems, it was necessary to employ meticulous case differentiations, differentiated terminology and definitions that were
extremely specific to the actual circumstances, a feat for which the
language normally used in mathematics could not provide well.
The circumstances observed in reality could no longer simply be
described using the available mathematical means.
While he was serving as Chair of the department in 1963/64,
he continued thinking about basic issues in systems analysis,
especially the issue of unsharpness of class boundaries. These
thoughts indicate the beginning of the genesis of Fuzzy Set
Theory. ([6], p. 7) and he submitted his first article Fuzzy Sets
to the editors of Information and Control in November 1964. In
this paper, that appeared in the following June, he launched new
mathematical entities as classes or sets that are not classes or sets
in the usual sense of these terms, since they do not dichotomize all
objects into those that belong to the class and those that do not.
He introduced the concept of a fuzzy set, that is a class in which
there may be a continuous infinity of grades of membership, with
the grade of membership of an object x in a fuzzy set A
represented by a number fA(x) in the interval [0,1]. [7, 8]
In 1968, Zadeh presented fuzzy algorithms, a concept that
may be viewed as a generalization, through the process of
fuzzification, of the conventional (non-fuzzy) conception of an
algorithm. ([9], p. 94.) Inspired by this idea, he wrote in the
article Fuzzy Algorithms that all people function according to
fuzzy algorithms in their daily life they use recipes for cooking,
consult the instruction manual to fix a TV, follow prescriptions to
treat illnesses or heed the appropriate guidance to park a car. Even
though activities like this are not normally called algorithms: For
our point of view, however, they may be regarded as very crude
forms of fuzzy algorithms. ([9], p. 95.)
As we mentioned already, Zadeh often compared the
strategies of problem solving by computers on the one hand and by
humans on the other hand. In a conference paper in 1970 he called
it a paradox that the human brain is always solving problems by
manipulating fuzzy concepts and multidimensional fuzzy
sensory inputs whereas the computing power of the most
powerful, the most sophisticated digital computer in existence is
not able to do this. Therefore, he stated that in many instances, the
solution to a problem need not be exact, so that a considerable
measure of fuzziness in its formulation and results may be
tolerable. The human brain is designed to take advantage of this
tolerance for imprecision whereas a digital computer, with its need
for precise data and instructions, is not. ([11], p. 132) He
continued: Although present-day computers are not designed to
accept fuzzy data or execute fuzzy instructions, they can be
programmed to do so indirectly by treating a fuzzy set as a datatype which can be encoded as an array [. . .]. Granted that this is

not a fully satisfactory approach to the endowment of a computer

with an ability to manipulate fuzzy concepts, it is at least a step in
the direction of enhancing the ability of machines to emulate
human thought processes. It is quite possible, however, that truly
significant advances in artificial intelligence will have to await the
development of machines that can reason in fuzzy and nonquantitative terms in much the same manner as a human being.
([11], p. 132)
The electrical engineer Ebrahim H. Mamdani read Zadehs
paper [10] shortly after he became professor of electrical
engineering of the University of London in 1971. Subsequently, he
suggested to his doctoral student Sedrak Assilian that he devise a
fuzzy algorithm to control a small model steam engine [12]. In his
PhD dissertation Mamdani studied recursiveness (feedback) in
artificial Neural Networks. Now, he wished to design a control
system that could learn on the basis of linguistic rules. He incited
Assilian to perform a trial to set up a fuzzy system under
laboratory conditions [13]. They designed a fuzzy algorithm to
control a small steam engine in a few days: It was an
experimental study which became very popular. Immediately we
had a steam engine, and the idea was to control the steam engine.
We started working at Friday, and I do not remember clearly
by Sunday it was working he said in 2008 ([14], p. 74). This was
the starting point of the great success of Fuzzy Systems in
technology in the 20th century.
III. ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS
The starting point of modern neuroscience was the discovery
of the central nervous systems microscopic structure as nerve
cells. In the 1880s the Spanish histologist Santiago Ramn y Cajal
studied neural material and after he learned the method of staining
nervous tissue which would stain a limited number of cells that
was discovered by the Italian physician and pathologist Camillo
Golgi, Cajal could demonstrate different nerve cells (neurons),
various types of nerve cells and he could depict their structure and
connectivity. About half a decade later physicist Nicolas
Rashevsky, who was an expat from the (former Russian but now
Ukrainian) town Chernikow to the US in 1924. First at the
Westinghouse Research Labs, Pittsburgh and later in the
Department of Physiology at the University of Chicago he
developed a systematic approach to mathematical methods in
Biology. In 1938 he published the first volume of Mathematical
Biophysics: Physico-Mathematical Foundations of Biology [15],
and in the later decades four more books followed [16-19]. In
1939 he founded the journal Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics
and in 1947 he established also the worlds first Ph. D program in
Mathematical Biology. Rashevskys new theory was based on the
abstract concept of the fundamental unit of life the cell. To
describe this concept mathematically exact he disregarded many
properties, as there are so many variations in cells and no cell is
equal to another. Not all cells have a core, some have more than
one, cells differ in size, structure and chemical composition,
some but not all -- need oxygen etc. Rashevskys abstract
definition was: A cell is a small liquid or semi-liquid system, in
which physico-chemical reactions are taking place, so that some
substances enter into it from the surrounding medium and are

740

Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics [21]. Similar to Rashewskys

theory this original paper linked the activities of an abstract neural
network of two-factor elements with a complete logical calculus
for time-dependent signals in electric circuits and time is measured
here as a synaptic delay. In contrast to Raschewsky, McCulloch
and Pitts interpreted neurons in terms of electric on-off switches.
They had shown that a system of artificial neurons' like this
could perform the same calculations and obtain the same results of
an equivalent analogic structure, as [t]he `all-or-none' law of
nervous activity is sufficient to insure that the activity of any
neuron may be represented as a proposition. Psychological
relations existing among nervous activities correspond, of course,
to relations among the propositions; and the utility of the
representation depends upon the identity of these relations with
those of the logic of propositions. To each reaction of any neuron
there is a corresponding assertion of a simple proposition. ([12],
p. 117) Because electric on-off switches can be interconnected
such that each Boolean statement can be realized, McCulloch and
Pitts now realized the entire logical calculus of propositions by
neuron nets. They arrived at the following assumptions: i) the
activity of the neurons is an all-or-none process; ii) a certain
fixed number of synapses must be excited within the period of
latent addition in order to excite a neuron at any time, and this
number is independent of previous activity and position on the
neuron; iii) the only significant delay within the nervous system is
synaptic delay; iv) the activity of any inhibitory synapse absolutely
prevents excitation of the neuron at that time; v) the structure of
the net does not change with time. ([21], p. 116). Every
McCulloch-Pitts neuron is a threshold element: If the threshold
value is exceeded, the neuron becomes active and fires'. By
firing or not firing', each neuron represents the logical truthvalues true or false. Appropriately linked neurons thus carry
out the logical operations like conjunction, disjunction, etc. Two
years later the mathematician John von Neumann picked the paper
up and used it in teaching the theory of computing machines [22]
and may be that initiated the research program of Neuronal
Information Processing, a collaboration involving psychology
and sensory physiology, in which other groups of researchers were
soon interested. Some years later, von Neumann wrote on his
comparative view on the computer and the brain in an unfinished
manuscript that was published posthumously after his premature
death. [23]
In 1951, mathematician Marvin Minsky had worked with
Dean Edmonds in Princeton to develop a first neurocomputer,
which consisted of 3,000 tubes and 40 artificial neurons was
called SNARC (Stochastic Neural- Analog Reinforcement
Computer), in which the weights of neuronal connections could be
varied automatically. But SNARC was never practically
employed. The classic problem that a computer at that time was
supposed to solve, and hence an artificial neuronal network was
expected to, was the classification of patterns of features, such as
handwritten characters. Under the concept of a pattern, objects of
reality are usually represented by pixels; frequency patterns that
represent a linguistic sign, a sound, can also be characterized as
patterns. In 1957/1958, Frank Rosenblatt and Charles Wightman
at Cornell University developed a first machine for pattern

transformed, through those reactions, into other substances. Some

of these other substances remain within the system, causing it to
increase in size; some diffuse outwards. Analogous to physics he
postulated that cells are subjects to effects of forces that he wanted
to analyze as he wrote. To this end we must investigate various
possible cases, which open up an unexplored field to the
mathematician. ([20], p. 528 f.) Following up the works of former
neuro-anatomists he wrote: Whenever we have an aggregate of
cells in which the dividing factors prevail, they will repel each
other. On the other hand, when the restoring factors prevail, cells
attract each other. Of all cells, the neurons have most completely
lost their property of dividing; we should expect forces of
attraction between them. Indeed the existence of such forces has
been inferred by a number of neurologists, notably Ariens Kappers
and Ramon y Cajal from various observations. ([20], p. 530.) On
the other hand Rashevsky considered also the results of the
behavioral research of the Russian Iwan Petrowitsch Pawlow when
he established a theory of neural networks: It has been suggested
that a formation of new anatomical connexions between neurones
may be the cause of conditioned reflexes and learning. Calculation
shows that the above forces may account for it. Under certain
conditions they will produce an actual new connexion in a very
small fraction of a second [] This leads us towards a
mathematical theory of nervous functions. We find that, under very
general conditions, aggregates of cells such as are studied above
will possess many properties characteristic of the brain. ([20], p.
530.) Rashevskys idea was a radically new approach to the
investigation of the brain. He was interested in phenomena of
excitation and propagation in peripheral nerve fibers because he
thought that data are stored in these nerve fibers. These data he
identified as atomic elements of his theory and their input-outputbehavior he interpreted as a transfer function. To present this
input-output description into intern state variables he used two
state variables excitation and inhibition and he called the excitatory
atoms of the theory two-factor elements. Rashevsky established
a theory of peripheral nerve propagation with the assumption that
excitatory elements can form fibers that accumulate not only linear
but moreover as networks. Elements of these networks are similar
to neurons and networks of such neurons are similar to brains. He
saw in these woven structures a model for the brain and he
proposed the simulation of the behavior of brains using these
theoretical networks of abstract two-factor elements. He
proposed using physical concepts, e.g. minimizing energy and
differential equations to describe the behavior of neurons and
neural networks that are associated with psychological processes,
e.g. Pavlovian conditioning.
In the Committee on Mathematical Biophysics that
Rashevsky founded 1938 in Chicago, he aimed to realize his
program of Mathematical Biology as a mirror picture of
Mathematical Physics. Members of this program were Alvin
Weinberger, Alston Householder, Emilo Amelotti, Herbert Daniel
Landahl, John M. Reiner und Gaylor J. Young. In 1940 also
Warren McCulloch and the young math student Walter H. Pitts
(1923-1969) joined this group.
In 1943 McCulloch and Pitts published A Logical Calculus
of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity' in Rashevskys

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classification. Rosenblatt described this early artificial neural

network, called Mark I Perceptron, in an essay for the
Psychological Review [24]. It was the first model of a neuronal
network which was capable of learning and in which it could be
shown that the proposed learning algorithm was always successful
when the problem had a solution at all. The perceptron appeared to
be a universal machine and Rosenblatt had also heralded it as such
in his 1961 book Principles of Neurodynamics Perceptrons and
the Theory of Mind: For the first time, we have a machine which
is capable of having original ideas. ... As concept, it would seem
that the perceptron has established, beyond doubt, the feasibility
and principle of nonhuman systems which may embody human
cognitive functions ... The future of information processing devices
which operates on statistical, rather than logical, principles seems
to be clearly indicated. [25] The euphoria came to an abrupt halt
in 1969, however, when Minsky and Seymour Papert completed
their study of perceptron networks and published their findings in a
book. [26] The results of the mathematical analysis to which they
had subjected Rosenblatts perceptron were devastating: Artificial
neural networks like those in Rosenblatts perceptron are not able
to overcome many different problems! For example, it could not
discern whether the pattern presented to it represented a single
object or a number of intertwined but unrelated objects. The
perceptron could not even determine whether the number of
pattern components was odd or even. Yet should this have been a
simple classification task that was known as a parity problem.
The either-or operator of propositional logic, the so-called XOR,
presents a special case of the parity problem that thus cannot be
solved by Rosenblatts perceptron. Therefore, the logical calculus
realized by this type of neuronal networks was incomplete. As a
result of this fundamental criticism, many projects on perceptron
networks or similar systems all over the world were shelved or at
least modified. It took many years for a revival of this branch of AI
research.
Since 1981 the psychologists James L. McClelland (born in
1948) and David E. Rumelhart (1942-2011) applied Artificial
Neural Networks to explain cognitive phenomena (spoken and
visual word recognition). In 1986, this research group published
the two volumes of the book Parallel Distributed Processing:
Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition [27]. Already in
1982 John J. Hopfield, a biologist and Professor of Physics at
Princeton, CalTech, published the paper Neural networks and
physical systems with emergent collective computational abilities
[28] on his invention of an associative neural network (now more
commonly known as the Hopfield Network), i.e.: Feedback
Networks that have only one layer that is both input as well as
output layer and each of the binary McCulloch-Pitts Neurons is
linked with every other, except itself. McClellands research group
could show that perceptrons with more than one layer can realize
the logical calculus; multi layer perceptrons indicated the
recommencement of the direction of artificial Neural in AI.

Arthur W. Burks Logic of Computers Group at the University

of Michigan in Ann Arbor and in 1954 he was among the first
students in the new Ph.D. program Computer and
Communication science. Holland was the first to graduate in
1959. He was affected by the book The Genetical Theory of
Natural Selection, written by English statistician and evolutionary
biologist Sir Ronald A. Fisher, and he was warm on analogies of
evolutionary theory and animal breeding from a computer science
point of view: Can we breed computer programs? Thats where
genetic algorithms came from. I began to wonder if you could
breed programs the way people would say, breed good horses and
breed good corn, Holland recalled later ([29], p. 128).
Burks was a mathematician and philosopher who had
collaborated with von Neumann in the IAS computer project since
1946. Later, he expanded the theory of automata, completed and
edited the paper Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, von
Neumann had been working on, posthumously in 1966 [30].
When von Neumann was involved with the ManhattanProject to construct the first atomic bombs, his colleague Stanislaw
Ulam, a fellow European expat and mathematician, recounted him
about his studies on the growth of crystals at Los Alamos National
Laboratory. When looking for a model of discrete dynamic
systems he had the idea of a cellular automaton and he created a
simple lattice network. The states of Ulams cells at a certain point
in time t were determined by its state at point in time instantaneous
before t.
In 1953 von Neumann picked up this idea when he was
thinking on self-replicating systems: one robot building another
robot. He then conceptualized a theory of self reproducing twodimensional cellular automata with a self-replicator implemented
algorithmically. There was a universal copier and constructor
working within a cellular automaton with 29 states per cell and von
Neumann could show that a particular pattern would copy itself
again and again within the given pool of cells. Following up this he
was wondering if self reproducing of automata also could pursue
an evolutionary strategy, i.e. due to mutations and struggle for
resources. Unfortunately there is no paper by von Neumann on this
subject. It had a huge impact, not only in computing but in
biology and philosophy as well, said John Holland who became
professor of psychology, electrical engineering and computer
science at the University of Michigan: Until then, it was assumed
that only living things could reproduce. [31] In his Adaptation in
Natural and Artificial Systems published in 1975 [32], Holland
showed how to use these genetic search algorithms to solve realworld problems. His research objectives were i) the theoretical
explanation of adaptive processes in nature and ii) the
development of software that keeps the mechanisms of natural
systems and adapting to the respective circumstances at the best.
[32] The label Genetic Algorithms goes back to John D.
Bagleys Ph.D thesis, written under Hollands supervision [33].
Bagley applied these algorithms to find solutions in game theoretic
problems. Other Ph. D. students of Holland were Kenneth De Jong
and David E. Goldberg, could demonstrate various successful
applications.
Evolutionary Programming appeared with the research
work of Lawrence G. Fogel for the National Science Foundation

IV. EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION

The idea of artificial neurons that form a network and that
gives emerging rise to complex behavior fascinated the young Ph
D student John H. Holland in the mid-1950s. He was a member of

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uses precise algorithms to derive conclusions or optimal values

from clearly defined data, Soft Computing takes into consideration
that there are not clearly defined concepts, inaccuracies,
vagueness, and blurred knowledge. Therefore, the theory of Fuzzy
Sets is a central part of Soft Computing. Other segments of this
field are Artificial Neural Networks, Evolutionary and Genetic
Computing and Programming.
Zadeh had committed to the assumption that traditional AI
couldnt cope with the future challenges. He directed his critique to
the general approach of hard computing n Computer Science
and Engineering. In his foreword to the first issue of the journal
Applied Soft Computing he recommended that instead of an
element of competition between the complementary
methodologies of SC the coalition that has to be formed has to be
much wider: it has to bridge the gap between the different
communities in various fields of science and technology and it has
to bridge the gap between science and humanities and social
sciences! SC is a suitable candidate to meet these demands
because it opens the fields to the humanities. [...] Initially,
acceptance of the concept of soft computing was slow in coming.
Within the past few years, however, soft computing began to grow
rapidly in visibility and importance, especially in the realm of
applications which are related to the conception, design and
utilization of information/intelligent systems. This is the backdrop
against which the publication of Applied Soft Computing should be
viewed. By design, soft computing is pluralistic in nature in the
sense that it is a coalition of methodologies which are drawn
together by a quest for accommodation with the pervasive
imprecision of the real world. At this juncture, the principal
members of the coalition are fuzzy logic, neuro-computing,
evolutionary computing, probabilistic computing, chaotic
computing and machine learning. ([40], p. 1-2)
In 2010 Luis Magdalena, accompanied Zadeh in
distinguishing between Soft Computing as opposite to Hard
Computing saying that the conventional approaches of HC
gain a precision that in many applications is not really needed or,
at least, can be relaxed without a significant effect on the solution
and that the more economical, less complex and more feasible
solutions of SC are sufficient. He pointed out that using suboptimal solutions that are enough is softening the goal of
optimization to be satisfied with inferring an implicit model
from the problem specification and the available data. Inversely
we can say that without an explicit model we will never find the
optimal solution. But this is not a handicap! SC makes a virtue
out of necessity because it is a combination of emerging problemsolving technologies for real-world problems and this means that
we have only empirical prior knowledge and input-output data
representing instances of the systems behavior. [41]
Also computer scientist Piero Bonissone stated, in these cases
of ill-defined systems, that are difficult to model and with largescale solution spaces precise models are impractical, too
expensive, or non-existent. [...] Therefore, we need approximate
reasoning systems capable of handling such imperfect information.
Soft Computing technologies provide us with a set of flexible
computing tools to perform these approximate reasoning and
search tasks. [42]

[34]. Fogel was inspired by the research programs of AI and

Artificial Neural Networks but he also believed that intelligent
behavior is based on adapting behavior. Evolutionary
Programming was his way to build finite-state machines that adapt
in a range of environment. In 1966 the book Artificial Intelligence
through Simulated Evolution [35] appeared, co-authored by Fogel,
Al Owens und Jack Walsh in which this biological inspired
research programs merged to the now so-called field of
Evolutionary Computation. Then, this team collaborated in the
company General Dynamics in San Diego and later the three
founded their company Decision Science.
Finally, when in 1992 John Kozas book Genetic
Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of
Natural Selection was published [36], the field of Genetic
Programming appeared, where scientists generate programs to
solve problems by evolution: Programs have been identified as
individuals that are subject to natural selection.
Apart from these developments in the US other natural
inspired principles have been considered in Germany: In the
1960s, Ingo Rechenberg and Hans-Paul Schwefel, two students of
aircraft construction at the Technical University of Berlin,
suggested to consider the theory of biological evolution to develop
optimization strategies in engineering. In the 1960 the two were
keen on cybernetics and bionics. Rechenberg was dealing with
wall shear stress measurements and Schwefel was responsible for
organizing fluid dynamics exercises for other students. The two
met in the Hermann Fttinger-Institute for Hydrodynamics (HFI)
and they started considering the theory of biological evolution to
develop optimization strategies in engineering. They were
dreaming of a research robot working according to cybernetic
principles, but computers became available only later on. In 1963,
together with Peter Bienert, they founded the unofficial working
group Evolutionstech-nik. They wanted to construct a kind of
research robot that should perform series of experiments on a
flexible slender three-dimensional body in a wind tunnel so as to
minimize its drag. The method of minimization was planned to be
ether a one variable at a time or a discrete gradient technique,
gleaned from classical numerics. Both strategies, performed
manually, failed, however. They became stuck prematurely when
used for a two-dimensional demonstration facility, a joint plate
its optimal shape being a flat plate with which the students tried
to demonstrate that it was possible to find the optimum
automatically [37].
Then, Rechenberg had the idea to perform experimental
optimization of the shape of wings and kinked plates through
mostly small modifications of the variables via a random manner,
i.e. to use dice for random decisions. This was the seminal idea to
bring to light the first evolution strategy, which was initially used
on a discrete problem and was handled without computers.
However, some time later, Schwefel expanded the idea toward
evolution strategies to deal with numerical/parametric optimization
and, also, formalized it as it is known nowadays. [38, 39].
V. SOFT COMPUTING
The concept of soft computing crystallized in my mind during the
waning months of 1990, wrote Zadeh. Whereas hard computing

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[15] N. Rashevsky: Mathematical Biophysics: Physico-Mathematical

Foundations of Biology. Chicago 1938.
[16] N. Rashevsky: Advances and Applications of Mathematical Biology.
Chicago 1940.
[17] N. Rashevsky: Mathematical Theory of Human Relations: An Approach
to Mathematical Biology of Social Phenomena. Bloomington, ID, 1947.
[18] N. Rashevsky: Mathematical Biology of Social Behavior. Chicago 1951
[19] N. Rashevsky: Mathematical Principles in Biology and their
Applications, Springfield, IL, 1961.
[20] N. Rashevsky, Nicolas: Mathematical Biophysics, Nature, April 6,
1935, pp. 528530.
[21] W. S. McCulloch and W. H. Pitts: A Logical Calculus of the Ideas
Immanent in Nervous Activity, Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics,
1943, pp. 115133.
[22] J. von Neumann: First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, http:
//wwwalt.ldv.ei.tum.de/lehre/pent/skript/V onNeumann.pdf.
[23] J. von Neumann: The Computer and the Brain. New Haven 1958.
[24] F. Rosenblatt: The Perceptron: A Probabilistic Model for Information
Storage and Organization in the Brain, Psychological Review, 65 (6),
1958, pp. 386408.
[25] F. Rosenblatt: Principles of Neurodynamics: Perceptrons and the
Theory of Brain Mechanisms, Spartan Books, 1962.
[26] M. Minsky and S. Papert: Perceptrons. Cambridge, Mass., 1969.
[27] D. E. Rumelhart and J. L. McClelland and the PDP Research Group:
Parallel Distributed Processing I, II. Cambridge, Mass., 1986.
[28] J. J. Hopfield: Neural networks and physical systems with emergent
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As this paper had humbly tried to show, Soft Computing has a

very interesting and rich history, and its past is well rooted in the
stream of disciplines that today concur to a strong and resilient
development of technologies without forgetting the lessons and
intuitions of human sciences. What lies in the future of Soft
Computing is for us to discover and create, though many hunches
and impressions lead us to believe that it will play a pivotal role in
the desirable convergence between hard and soft sciences. We
have already discussed this in [43], and we can see how from a
technical standpoint the methodologies proper of Soft Computing
and from a human perspective the unicity of it allow to come face
to face with and often help resolving problems that by their very
nature seem far from the rigid precision of traditional computing
methodologies. Just as an example, we have used Soft Computing
methodologies in the evaluation of complexity in visual images
and in exploring the aesthetic experience [44,45], and discussed its
role in the modeling of the concept of wisdom related to its use as
a human helper in expert systems [46]. These aspects are classical
examples from a context in which not only Soft Computing seems
to offer a better view on the problem of implementing procedure to
replicate some kind of human performance, but as a bonus it
renders the descriptions much clearer and similar to what is
normally expressed by human sciences, and paths to the possible
solutions easier and more natural to find. Soft Computing is in our
opinion already opening a new era in science and technology, an
era of global application of computing methodologies to all the
facets of hard and soft sciences alike.
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