Arnold Kaufmann


Arnold Kaufmann was a French engineer, professor of Applied Mechanics and Operations Research at the Mines ParisTech in Paris, at the Grenoble Institute of Technology and the Université catholique de Louvain, and scientific advisor at Groupe Bull. He is known for writing the first book on fuzzy sets, and as cofounder of the International Project Management Association.

Life and work

Kaufmann had an illustrious career. He served as pilot during World War II, and in his later life became Professor of Applied Mechanics and Operations Research at the Ecole Supérieure des Mines de Paris; Polytechnic University at Grenoble; and the university of Louvain in Belgium.
In the 1964-65 Kaufmann participated in meetings with Roland Gutsch from Germany, Pierre Koch and Yves Eugene from France, and Dick Vullinghs from The Netherlands, which lead to the founding of the International Project Management Association. In the discussion about how to name the new association, Kaufmann suggested the term INTERNET for INTERnational NETwork. After the Vienna congress of the association in 1967, INTERNET became the official association name of the conference held every second year.
In an memoriam of Professor Arnold Kaufmann Lotfi A. Zadeh wrote:

Selected publications