Bob Herschberg

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Israel Samuel (Bob) Herschberg, (March 18, 1928 - March 19, 1998) was a Dutch chemist, computer scientist, and from 1978 until his retirement at January 16, 1998, professor of Computer Science at the Delft University of Technology. With Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg was long time editor of the ICCA Journal as well as editor of the Advances in Computer Chess 7 conference proceedings.

=Biography= Born 1928 in Rotterdam, Israel Samuel Herschberg visited the Gymnasium Erasmianum until the Nuremberg Laws were applied during the German Occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. He continued at the Joodse Lycea (Jewish College) in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, until he got arrested in April 1944, and imprisoned in the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp (via Westerbork). After his liberation he continued at Gymnasium Erasmianum and got a diplom in 1946.

Bob Herschberg started to study chemistry in Amsterdam and had first contact with computers in 1958. His 1966 thesis Overdetermined Linear Systems in Multicomponent Spectrophotometry from the Eindhoven University of Technology was a groundbreaking publication, and his related school of information theory was yielding a new generation of computer scientist in the Netherlands. After a career as consultant at Nederlandse Staatsmijnen and Unilever, where he revealed many errors in the operating systems of their mainframes, he accepted a professorship at Delft University of Technology in 1978, with research interests Information security and Computer Chess. He had the fame as "The Ethical Hacker" and in his inaugural address titled In de Ban van de Fout (Under the spell of error) he stated that the protection of private-sensitive data is actually impossible. Only two months after his retirement, Israel Samuel Herschberg passed away at age 70.

=Poems= Under the acronym DRISH, Bob Herschberg was a writer of poems, and published/translated Hebrew and French poems and literature of Judah Halevi, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Leah Goldberg and Charles d’ Orléans.

=Quotes= by David Levy from Intelligence blues, Bewaar Me : Perhaps Bob Herschberg has found the answer. Deep Blue beats Kasparov - now it is time to retire!

by Jaap van den Herik from Israel Samuel Herschberg: An Obituary Bob Herschberg was fully dedicated to science, language, literature, and problem solving. He was not a chess-player himself, but his father was, and in the Jewish tradition he liked what his father liked. Therefor he was interested in computer chess. Consequently, he encouraged me to bring the ICCA Newsletters/Journal to Delft and promised me support. As all readers know he was a stickler for perfection. Being so devoted to science, he entrusted his body to science. I am sure, his contributions to computer chess will live on.

=Selected Publications=

1966

 * Israel Samuel Herschberg (1966). Overdetermined Linear Systems in Multicomponent Spectrophotometry. Proefschrift, available as pdf reprint

1977

 * Bob Herschberg, J.C.A. Boekhorst (1977). Concurrent File Access Under Unpredictability. Inf. Process. Lett. 6(6): 203-208

1980 ...

 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1982). Donnerwetter. ICCA Newsletter, Vol. 5, No. 1
 * Harry Nefkens, Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1984). De openingsbibliotheek van het schaakprogramma PION. THD rapport (Dutch)

1985 ...
1986 1987 1988 1989
 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1985). The Construction of an Omniscient Endgame Data Base. ICCA Journal, Vol. 8, No. 2
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1985). Calling All Mates ICCA Journal, Vol. 8, No. 2
 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1985). Elementary Theory Improved, a Conjecture Refuted. ICCA Journal, Vol. 8, No. 3
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1985). A Gauge of Endgames. ICCA Journal Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 225-229.
 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1986). A Data Base on Data Bases. ICCA Journal, Vol. 9, No. 1
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1986). Thompson's New Data-Base Results. ICCA Journal, Vol. 9, No. 1
 * Bob Herschberg (1986). The 5th World Microcomputer Chess Championship. ICCA Journal, Vol. 9, No. 3, Review on a booklet by C. Roos and T. Sibbing, Computer Chess Foundation Amsterdam
 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1986). A Note on KBBK. ICCA Journal, Vol. 9, No. 4
 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1986). Omniscience, the Rulegiver? Proceedings of L'Intelligenza Artificiale Ed Il Gioco Degli Scacchi, IIIo Convegno Internazionale (eds. B. Pernici and M. Somalvico), pp. 1-17.
 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1987). The KBBKN Statistics: New Data from Ken Thompson. ICCA Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1987). By Crawls and Creeps. ICCA Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1987). More Truth on KBBK Database Results. ICCA Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2
 * Hans Zellner, Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1987). Corrections and Substantiations to KBNK. ICCA Journal, Vol. 10, No. 3
 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg, Najib Nakad (1987). A Six-Men-Endgame Database: KRP(a2)KbBP(a3). ICCA Journal, Vol. 10, No. 4, pdf
 * Sito Dekker, Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1987). Complexity Starts at Five. ICCA Journal, Vol. 10, No. 3
 * Sito Dekker, Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1987). Perfect Knowledge and Beyond. Report 37-87, Delft University of Technology, Delft.
 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1988). Computer Checks on Human Analyses of the KRKB Endgame. ICCA Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1
 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg, Najib Nakad (1988). Karpov Amends Timman's Analysis. ICCA Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1, pdf
 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg, Najib Nakad (1988). A Reply to R. Sattler's Remarks on the KRP(a2)KbBP(a3) Database. ICCA Journal, Vol. 11, No. 2/3, pdf
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik, Patrick Schoo (1989). Verifying and Codifying Strategies in a Chess Endgame. Workshop on New Directions in Game-Tree Search
 * Sito Dekker, Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1989). Perfect Knowledge and Beyond. Advances in Computer Chess 5
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik, Patrick Schoo (1989). Verifying and Codifying Strategies in the KNNKP(h) Endgame. ICCA Journal, Vol. 12, No. 3, pdf
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1989). Thank You, Dr. Shannon. ICCA Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4 » Claude Shannon, WCCC 1989

1990 ...
1991 1992 1993 1994
 * Bob Herschberg, Ronald Paans (1990). Friday the 13th, facts and fancies. Computers & Security 9(2): 125-130
 * Ronald Paans, Bob Herschberg (1990). Auditing the change management process. Computers & Security 9(2): 161-174
 * Bob Herschberg, Ronald Paans (1990) Sloppy, sloppier, sloppiest. Computers & Security 9(3): 223-228
 * Sito Dekker, Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1990). Perfect Knowledge Revisited. Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 111-123.
 * Mikhail Donskoy, Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1990). Finessing in Games. ICCA Journal, Vol. 13, No. 4
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik, Patrick Schoo (1990). Verifying and Codifying Strategies in a Chess Endgame. Computers, Chess, and Cognition, pp. 183-196
 * Victor Allis, Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1991). Which Games Will Survive? Heuristic Programming in Artificial Intelligence 2
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1991). Doubting Castle. ICCA Journal, Vol. 14, No. 3
 * Dennis Breuker, Victor Allis, Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1992). A Database as a Second. ICCA Journal, Vol. 15, No. 1
 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1992). The 7th World Computer-Chess Championship. Report on the Tournament. ICCA Journal, Vol. 15, No. 4 » WCCC 1992
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1993). Back to fifty. ICCA Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1
 * Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg. (1993). J. Nunn: Secrets of Rook Endings. ICCA Journal, Vol. 16, No. 2
 * Hiroyuki Iida, Jos Uiterwijk, Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1993). Potential Applications of Opponent-Model Search. Part 1: The Domain of Applicability. ICCA Journal, Vol. 16, No. 4
 * Edo Roos Lindgreen, Bob Herschberg (1994). On the validity of the Bell-La Padula model. Computers & Security 13(4): 317-333
 * Hiroyuki Iida, Jos Uiterwijk, Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1994). Potential Applications of Opponent-Model Search. Part 2. Risks and strategies. ICCA Journal, Vol. 17, No. 1
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1994). J. Nunn: Secrets of Pawnless Endings. ICCA Journal, Vol. 17, No. 2
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1994). The Five Powers. ICCA Journal, Vol. 17, No. 4
 * Hiroyuki Iida, Jos Uiterwijk, Jaap van den Herik, Bob Herschberg (1994). Thoughts on the Application of Opponent-Model Search. Advances in Computer Chess 7

1995 ...
1996 1997 1998
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1995). Mikhail Moiseivich Botvinnik: An Obituary. ICCA Journal, Vol. 18, No. 2 » Mikhail Botvinnik
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1995). Aegonics. ICCA Journal, Vol. 18, No. 3, pdf
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1995). Dieter Steinwender and Frederic F. Friedel: Schach am PC. ICCA Journal, Vol. 18, No. 4
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1995). Peter Schreiner and Karsten Bauermeister (eds.): Der Schachcomputerkatalog. ICCA Journal, Vol. 18, No. 4
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1996). Konrad Zuse: An Obituary. ICCA Journal, Vol. 19, No. 1 » Konrad Zuse
 * Bob Herschberg, Jaap van den Herik (1996). Chess or Beyond? ICCA Journal, Vol. 19, No. 2
 * Bob Herschberg (1997). A Brief History of the Future ICCA. ICCA Journal, Vol. 20, No. 2
 * Bewaar Me, Liber amicorum voor Prof. dr. I.S. Herschberg, Redactie Jaap van den Herik en E. Roos Lindgreen, 16 januari 1998, Drukkerij Van Spijk B.V. Delft, The Netherlands
 * Bob Herschberg (1998). Vers naar Vers, pp. 8-19.
 * Ben Mittman (1998). Times Past: Some Remembrances and Reflections, pp. 149-151.
 * Tony Marsland (1998). Too Clever by Half, pp. 152-153.
 * David Levy (1998). Intelligence Blues, pp. 154-156.
 * Jonathan Schaeffer (1998). A Database of Databases, pp. 157-161. A tribute to the late Bob Herschberg, available as ps
 * Jaap van den Herik (1998). Geleerd, pp. 162-166.
 * Bob Herschberg (1998). Al Goed - Afscheidsrede, pp. 201-216.

=External Links=
 * Israel Samuel Herschberg from Wikipedia.nl
 * The Mathematics Genealogy Project - Israel Herschberg

=References= Up one level