Remembering George A. Miller

George A. Miller, whose insight inspired the humble posts on this site, died on July 22, 2012. In a summary of his work at Kurzweil.net, mention is made of several achievements:

• Extending Shannon's information theory to human memory constraints (the "magical number") 
• Establishing psycholinguistics as a separate and legitimate area of study 
• He and J.S. Bruner cofounded the Harvard Center for Cognitive Studies, and later the Princeton Center for Cognitive Studies
• Developer of WordNet, a "a large lexical database of English. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are grouped into sets of cognitive synonyms (synsets), each expressing a distinct concept."

I carry WordNet on my netbook and use it several times a week. No doubt I will think of G.A.M. every time the app starts, and his insight so deceptively simple that became as powerful as poetry.