John Alan Robinson

John Alan Robinson ( born 1928 in Yorkshire, United Kingdom) is an English philosopher and logician who made ​​important contributions to logic programming.

After a degree in classical archeology at Cambridge University, he went in 1952 in the United States. There, he studied philosophy at the University of Oregon and earned 1956 in Princeton the title Doctor of Philosophy. After that, he worked at the chemical company DuPont, where he learned to program computers and mathematics. In 1961 he moved to Rice University, where he continued engaged in mathematics.

In 1965 he published "A machine- oriented logic based on the resolution principle" an important basis for automated resolution in the logic. In it, an algorithm for unification of predicate logic formulas goes back, which is crucial in demonstrating the impossibility of a predicate logic formula.

His works are largely incorporated into the development of the logic programming language Prolog. By Stephen Muggleton, Donald Michie and Koichi Furukawa Robinson was therefore referred to in a 1994 book as the founder of modern programmable logic.