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C00005 00003	.LTR(Professor Alan Biermann)
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%6S%5 Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, STANFORD UNIVERSITY, Stanford, California 94305
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	Douglas B. Lenat
	Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
	Stanford University
	Stanford, California  94305
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Sincerely,
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Doug  Lenat
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.LTR(Professor Alan Biermann)
Computer Science Department
Duke University
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514
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Dear Professor Biermann,

I was very gratified at the treatment of the BEINGS concept in your
recent survey of Automatic Programming.
As you may know,
I'm a fourth-year grad student in Stanford's CS department. I expect to
receive my Ph.D. by next Fall.
For my dissertation,
I've been working on a program which can develop
simple mathematical concepts, which aims at
expertise in theorem %2proposing%* rather than theorem %2proving%*.
It uses
skills from %2automatic programming%* to tackle a %2theory
formation%* task. 
In particular, the represenation of mathematical concepts is as BEINGs,
and each facet of a concept corresponds to a small program; so extending
the existing space of concepts means writing new programs.
An abstract of the project is enclosed.

My committee consists of Ed Feigenbaum, Cordell Green,
Bruce Buchanan, and Don Knuth. They have suggested that I write you,
since I expect to receive my PhD. by next Fall.
I am interested
in a faculty position for next year, and would welcome the opportunity to
discuss the matter with you. 
I could visit Duke sometime this Winter,
to give a colloquium on my dissertation research.
I will be in Anaheim for ACM76, on February 9-12; other than that,
I have no definite commitments yet for February.

.DBL