J. C. C. McKinsey explained

J.C.C. McKinsey
Other Names:	Chen McKinsey
Birth Date:	30 April 1908
Birth Place:	Clinton County, Indiana
Death Place:	Palo Alto, California
Nationality:	American
Fields:	Mathematical logic Game theory
Workplaces:	RAND Corporation, Stanford University
Alma Mater:	New York University, University of California
Thesis Title:	On Boolean functions of many variables
Thesis Url:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1989628
Doctoral Advisor:	Benjamin Abram Bernstein
Doctoral Students:	Jean Rubin
Known For:	Game theory
Awards:	Guggenheim Fellowship

John Charles Chenoweth McKinsey (30 April 1908 – 26 October 1953), usually cited as J. C. C. McKinsey, was an American mathematician known for his work on game theory and mathematical logic,^[1] particularly, modal logic.^[2]

Biography

McKinsey received B.S. and M.S. degrees from New York University and a Ph.D. degree in 1936 from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a Blumenthal Research Fellow at New York University from 1936 to 1937 and a Guggenheim Fellow from 1942 to 1943.^{[1] [3]} He also taught at Montana State College, and in Nevada, then Oklahoma, and in 1947 he went "to a research group at Douglas Aircraft Corporation" that later became the RAND Corporation.

McKinsey worked at RAND until he was fired in 1951. The FBI considered him a security risk because he was a homosexual, in spite of the fact that he was an open homosexual who had been in a committed relationship for years. He complained to his superior "How can anyone threaten me with disclosure when everybody already knows?"^[4]

From 1951 he taught at Stanford University, where he was later appointed a Full Professor in the Department of Philosophy,^[1] where he worked with Patrick Suppes on the axiomatic foundations of classical mechanics. He committed suicide^[4] at his home in Palo Alto in 1953.^[1]

Selected works

Book

• Book: McKinsey, J.C.C.. Introduction to the Theory of Games . Dover Publications . New York . 2003 . 978-0-486-42811-6 . (originally publ. McGraw-Hill, 1952)^[5]

Papers

• A reduction in number of the postulates for C. S. Lewis' system of strict implication. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.. 1934. 40. 6. 425–427. 1562873. 10.1090/s0002-9904-1934-05881-6. McKinsey. J. C. C.. 120247475 . free.
• On the independence of undefined ideas. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.. 1935. 41. 4. 291–297. 1563075. 10.1090/s0002-9904-1935-06074-4. McKinsey. J. C. C.. free.
• Reducible Boolean functions. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.. 1936. 42. 4. 263–267. 1563282. 10.1090/s0002-9904-1936-06285-3. McKinsey. J. C. C.. free.
• On Boolean functions of many variables. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc.. 1936. 40. 3. 343–362. 1501878. 10.1090/s0002-9947-1936-1501878-6. McKinsey. J. C. C.. free.
• McKinsey, J. C. C. (1941). "A solution of the decision problem for the Lewis systems S2 and S4, with an application to topology." The Journal of Symbolic Logic. 6 (4), 117–124. doi:10.2307/2267105
• A New Definition of Truth. Synthese. 7. 1948. 428–433.
• Some notions and problems of game theory. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.. 1952. 58. 6. 591–611. 0052748. 10.1090/s0002-9904-1952-09648-8. McKinsey. J. C. C.. free.
• Axiomatic foundations of classical particle mechanics. Journal of Rational Mechanics and Analysis. 2. 2. 1953. 253–72. 10.1512/iumj.1953.2.52012. McKinsey. J.. Sugar. A.. Suppes. Patrick. free.
• Philosophy and the axiomatic foundations of physics. Proceedings of the 11th International Congress of Philosophy. 6. 1953. 49–53.

With Alfred Tarski

• McKinsey, J. C. C., Tarski, Alfred (1944). "The algebra of topology." Annals of mathematics, 141–191. https://doi.org/10.2307/1969080.
• McKinsey, J. C., Tarski, Alfred (1946). "On closed elements in closure algebras." Annals of mathematics, 122–162. https://doi.org/10.2307/1969038.
• Some theorem about the sentential calculi of Lewis and Heyting. Journal of Symbolic Logic. 13. 1. 1948. 1–15. 10.2307/2268135. 2268135. McKinsey. J. C. C.. Tarski. Alfred. 38559151 . Alfred Tarski.

Notes and References

1. http://histsoc.stanford.edu/pdfmem/McKinseyJ.pdf Memorial Resolution
2. "One of the very first applications of topology to (modal) logic is McKinsey’s 1941 paper." Top of-the Logic - Can Baskent
3. https://archive.today/20130415000835/http://www.gf.org/fellows/9746-john-charles-mckinsey J(ohn) C(harles) McKinsey - John Simon Guggeheim Memorial Foundation
4. Book: Abella, Alex . Soldiers of reason : the Rand Corporation and the rise of the American empire . Mariner Books . Boston . 2009 . 978-0-15-603344-2 . 74.
5. Wolfowitz, J.. Jacob Wolfowitz. Review: Introduction to the theory of games by J. C. C. McKinsey. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.. 1953. 59. 3. 267–270. 10.1090/s0002-9904-1953-09703-8. free.