The Logic Theorist

Before summer ended, Newell and Simon showed up with something the field had never seen: the first working AI program.

They called it the Logic Theorist. Its job? Prove math theorems automatically.

They picked a famous book: Principia Mathematica by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. In 1910, these two spent years building math's logical foundation, theorem by theorem.

The Logic Theorist read the first 52 theorems... and proved 38 of them.

For one theorem, it even found a shorter, more elegant proof than Russell's own.

Thrilled, Newell and Simon sent the result to a math journal, with the Logic Theorist listed as co-author.

The editors turned it down. "Computers can't create math," they argued.