The fuzzification of systems. The genesis of fuzzy set theory and its initial applications. Developments up to the 1970s. Transl. from the German (Q883710)

The book under review is an English version of a book originally published in German (this Zbl 1112.01011). The book ``represents an attempt to trace the developments in scientific and technological history that led to the Fuzzy Set Theory and its applications''. The main idea of the theory is that of a ``fuzzy set'' in the \(n\)-dimensional Euclidean space \(E^n\) defined as a real function \(\mu\) on \(E^n\) with values \(0\leq\mu(x)\leq 1\), where \(x\in E^n\). The function expresses ``grades of membership'' from full \((\mu= 1)\) to non-membership \((\mu= 0)\). The idea has been introduced by \textit{L. A. Zadeh} [Inf. Control 8, 338--353 (1965; Zbl 0139.24606)], who was led by the conviction that most sets we meet in practice are those with unsharp boundaries. In spite of its highly biographical character concentrated upon L. A. Zadeh, the book offers a penetrating insight into philosophical and preceding the origins of the theory, its creation in 1965 and subsequent Zadeh's ``fuzzification program'' (any theory involving concepts of sets can be expanded into a theory with fuzzy sets) which included, among others, fuzzy probability theory, fuzzy topology, fuzzy logic, and the use of the Fuzzy Set Theory in medical diagnostics. The story stops at the end of the 1970s. The book contains many illustrations, its extensive bibliography consists of 743 items, indexes of names and of subjects facilitate reading, frequent footnotes provide short biographical notes or full German wording of the texts quoted in English. As R. Kruse put it (in the Foreword), it ``is the first treatment of the history of the Fuzzy Set Theory from a science history perspective''. It is a valuable and well documented book.