Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Beckman Institute [PAGE 10]

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and systems, computer sciences, and information sciences. At the apex it will investigate artificial intelligence - simulating in computers the human mind's ability to think and learn. In sum, this center's research moves from basic physics to functions not unlike the human brain's. New forms of semiconductor materials and new processes for fabricating ultra-high -speed computer chips will be investigated. On all levels - from the molecular composition of single devices up to the complexity of circuits performing artificial intelligence functions - physical scientists will be able to learn from biological scientists' research on the brain. These complex systems then could be integrated further to make computers so powerful that they exhibit human-like traits of intelligence. The focus at the Center for Biology, Behavior and Cognition will begin at the level of molecular biology and move up through cell biology, neuroscience and cognitive science, leading to direct consideration of human intelligence at the apex. Molecular and cell biologists will study how cells work, while neuroscientists will investigate how cells communicate with each other. In addition, cognitive scientists, who investigate perception, knowledge, reasoning and language, will try to learn more about how humans acquire new knowledge and how machines can be made to do so. The key to the institute's strength is its melding of many scientific disciplines whose advancing bodies of knowledge and increasingly similar methodologies are bringing them closer together. Although interdisciplinary research institutes exist elsewhere, none has attempted to bridge the physical and biological sciences on a scale comparable to that in the Beckman Institute. An editorial in Science (November 22, 1985) praised the University of Illinois for its fine record in interdisciplinary activities, and noted that "many of the future opportunities in research lie in complex phenomena requiring an interdisciplinary approach." Thomas E. Everhart, chancellor of the UrbanaChampaign campus of the University of Illinois, has said that the implications of the Beckman Institute go beyond research to the educational mission of the University by broadening the perspectives of both students and faculty. "We are recognizing this reality in the Beckman Institute, creating two coupled, cross-disciplinary centers, and coupling those in turn with other parts of the campus life in a way I think will have profound effects on the University of Illinois and the rest of society."