Donald Michie was born in Rangoon on November 11 1923, the son of James Michie and the former Marjorie Crain. From Rugby he won a classical scholarship to Balliol, becoming - according to wartime colleagues - "curator of the Balliol Book of Bawdy Verse". In 1942 he was recruited to Bletchley Park. He was put into Hut F, working to crack the Wehrmacht's "Tunny" machine, which encoded material more sensitive than that carried by the now celebrated "Enigma". The team's success gave the Allies access for the first time to German army situation reports in the run-up to D-Day, with invaluable insights into troop dispositions in France.

Quantum develops intelligent adaptive learning and assessment software solutions that inspire students to achieve more and empower instructors with real-time, actionable assessment tools to improve student learning and test performance. Accessed over the Internet anytime, anywhere, Quantum is scientifically proven to increase test scores by at least a full letter grade, accelerate learning and outperform other learning tools.

A recent study suggests that computers can score student essays about as well as human beings. Les Perelman, a director of writing at MIT, isn't impressed: While his research is limited, because E.T.S. is the only organization that has permitted him to test its product, he says the automated reader can be easily gamed, is vulnerable to test prep, sets a very limited and rigid standard for what good writing is, and will pressure teachers to dumb down writing instruction. The e-Rater's biggest problem, he says, is that it can't identify truth. He tells students not to waste time worrying about whether their facts are accurate, since pretty much any fact will do as long as it is incorporated into a well-structured sentence. "E-Rater doesn't care if you say the War of 1812 started in 1945," he said.

Roger C. Schank directs the Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, where he is also John Evans Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Psychology, and Education. Previously, he was Chairman of the Computer Science department at Yale University and Director of the Yale Artificial Intelligence Project. In addition, he was Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Computer Science at Stanford University. Schank holds a Ph.D in Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin. He is the founder of two businesses, Compu-Teach, an educational software company, and Cognitive Systems, a company specializing in natural language processing.

Born in the vicarage in Lenham, Kent, he was the second of the parish priest's three children. He joined The Pilgrim's school, Winchester, in 1932 and became a senior chorister at the cathedral. Three years later, he won the top entrance scholarship to Winchester College, where his precocious talents in mathematics and music flourished. In 1941, he won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, to read chemistry, but at the end of his first year also took part one of the music tripos, and was appointed Balliol organ scholar. In his second year, Christopher performed what Dr John Jones has described as "probably the greatest intellectual feat by a Balliol undergraduate ever": he proposed, with convincing arguments, the correct structure of the chemical compound diborane (B2H6) - a compound that defied contemporary chemical valency principles.

What makes one intervention work in a school when another seemingly similar one falls flat? Increasingly detailed computer models of student behavior and learning may help researchers avoid such setbacks by better pinpointing interventions before taking them to schools. "In education research, I get a great idea, apply for funding, … then I spend a few months in schools taking time from students and teachers, and often find out it doesn't work," said Richard L. Lamb, an assistant professor of science education and educational measurement at Washington State University in Pullman. "That's great that we have that data," he said, "but it's not the most efficient way to do [research and development]." Instead, Mr. Lamb and colleagues are working to pair education technology and neuroscience to mimic how students learn in a classroom and provide an additional means of testing and honing interventions.

Struggling algebra students in the Everett, Wash., school district get help from special tutors who diagnose their weaknesses, tailor instruction to their needs, and provide on-the-spot feedback-all with an inhuman degree of patience. That's inhuman literally: The tutors are computers. Three years ago, the district started employing Cognitive Tutor, a series of computer programs based on artificial intelligence that were developed by researchers from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The programs provide an alternative form of math instruction to secondary school students who haven't succeeded in regular classrooms. The experience proved so successful that officials in the 20,000-student district have expanded the program.

Just over 50 years ago, a group of brash young scholars at an MIT symposium introduced a series of ideas that would forever alter the way we think about how we think. In three groundbreaking papers, including one on grammar by a 27-year-old linguist named Noam Chomsky, the scholars ignited what is now known as the cognitive revolution, which was built on the radical notion that it is possible to study, with scientific precision, the actual processes of thought. The movement eventually freed psychology from the grip of behaviorism, a scientific movement popular in America that studied behavior as a proxy for understanding the mind. Cognitive psychology has fueled a generation of productive research, yielding deep insights into many aspects of thought, including memory, language, and perception. Tomorrow, Harvard University is celebrating this intellectual achievement with a discussion featuring Chomsky and other luminaries of the revolution.

Compressed air flows beneath silicone skin, triggering actuators that raise her arms and lift the corners of her mouth into a demure smile. She seems to compose herself, her eyes panning the room where she stands fixed to a platform, tubes and wires running down through her ankles. She blinks, then turns her face toward me. I can't help but meet her--its--mechanical gaze. "Are you surprised that I'm a robot?" she asks.

On a summer day four years ago, a Stanford University computer-science professor named Andrew Ng held an unusual air show on a field near the campus. His fleet of small helicopter drones flew under computer control, piloted by artificial-intelligence software that could teach itself to fly after watching a human operator. By the end of the day, the copters were hot-dogging--flipping, rolling, even hovering upside down. It was a milestone for the field of "machine learning," the same area of artificial intelligence that lets Amazon recommend books based on a shopper's previous habits and helps Google tailor search results to a user's behavior. Mr. Ng and his team of graduate students showed that artificial-intelligence software could control one of the hardest-to-maneuver vehicles and keep it stable while flying at 45 miles an hour.