Brighton Youth Teaches a Computer to Gamble – 1975

  • Name Article: Brighton youth teaches a computer to gamble
  • Author: Jack Nolan
  • Year: 23 January 1975
  • Published in: Democrat and Chronicle
  • Location: New York, USA

Brighton Youth teaches a computer to gamble- 23 January 1975
by Jack Nolan Democrat and Chronicle – Rochester, New York

This article is about a young English student named R. Lesser. This young student was among the last 300 finalists of the Westinghouse Science Talent Search – the Oldest and Most Prestigious Science and Mathematics Competition, to win a scholarship worth $10,000.

He was able to teach a computer to play 100 games of Solitaire in nine seconds, which is remarkable, especially in 1975. Unfortunately for Lesser, his project, “Computer Simulation and Statistical analyses of Las Vegas Solitaire” didn’t make it to the final.