Valentin Turchin

Valentin Fyodorovich Turchin was a Soviet-American physicist, cybernetician, and computer scientist. Born on February 14, 1931, in Podolsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, he passed away on April 7, 2010, in Oakland, New Jersey, U.S. Turchin held dual citizenship, being a citizen of the Soviet Union from 1931 to 1977 and a citizen of the United States from 1977 to 2010. He graduated from Moscow University with a degree in Theoretical Physics in 1952 and earned his Ph.D. in 1957. Turchin developed the Refal programming language, a functional programming language, and is also known for founding the Principia Cybernetica Project. He was a significant figure in the dissident movement in the Soviet Union, which led to his emigration in 1977. In his scientific career, he worked in the fields of cybernetics and computer science, contributing to artificial intelligence and the global brain hypothesis. He also developed the theory of metasystem transitions and the concept of supercompilation. Turchin was a professor at the City College of New York and later co-founded a software start-up. He had two sons, Peter and Dimitri Turchin.