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Alexander Brudno

Alexander Brudno was a Soviet-born computer scientist known for formally describing the alpha-beta pruning algorithm.

1918 to 2009Formalizing alpha-beta pruningThe Brudno-Kronrod seminarRussian programming Olympiads for students

Born: 10 January 1918, Soviet Union
Died: 1 December 2009, Israel
Occupation: computer scientist, mathematician, pedagogue
Education: MSU Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Lomonosov Moscow State University

Alexander Brudno was born in 1918 in Soviet Union

Alexander Brudno was born on 10 January 1918 in the Soviet Union. He worked as a mathematician, computer scientist and teacher.

He built the interface between mathematics and the machine for the M-2 computer, built in 1952 at the Krzhizhanovskii laboratory in Moscow's Institute of Energy. In 1959 he and his friend Alexander Kronrod started a seminar on system programming, game programming and artificial intelligence.

In 1963 he published his work on alpha-beta pruning in Russian and English. He formalized the algorithm and analyzed how much it speeds up a game search. The method was later used in the chess program Kaissa, which won the world computer chess title in 1974.

In 1980 he helped found the first Russian school for young programmers and served as its scientific director. He also led the first Russian programming Olympiads for students and published a book of their problems. From 1991 he lived in Israel, where he died on 1 December 2009.