John Larry Kelly Jr.

He was born in Corsicana, Texas. He spent four years in the US Navy as a pilot during World War II before entering the University of Texas at Austin. He graduated with a PhD in physics in 1953.

In 1961, Kelly and colleagues Carol Lochbaum and Lou Gerstman created one of the most famous moments in the history of Bell Telephone Laboratories by using an IBM 7094 computer to synthesize speech.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZISTvI4vVPsC&q=bell+labs+Carol+Lockbaum&pg=PA11|title=Computer Synthesized Speech Technologies: Tools for Aiding Impairment: Tools for Aiding Impairment|last=John|first=Mullennix|date=2010-01-31|publisher=IGI Global|isbn=9781615207268|language=en}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/21/nyregion/louis-gerstman-61-a-specialist-in-speech-disorders-and-processes.html|title=Louis Gerstman, 61, a Specialist In Speech Disorders and Processes|last=Lambert|first=Bruce|date=1992-03-21|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-03-14|issn=0362-4331}} A demonstration by Kelly and Gerstman took place on May 10, 1961, at a meeting in Philadelphia of the Acoustical Society of America where a reporter noted that "A machine that talks— and sings— stole the show today as the old Bellevue Stratford vibrated with the speed of sound. The new gadget, a modified mechanical brain, recited passages from Shakespeare and sang musical selections in response to card-punched symbols, which were fed to it.""Sounds of Speech— And They're a Card", by Charlie Bannister, Philadelphia Daily News, May 10, 1961, p. 50 Their voice recorder synthesizer vocoder recreated the song Daisy Bell,Another reporter, for the Australian Associated Press, noted that "the computor [sic] delivered the 'To Be Or Not To Be' lines from 'Hamlet''... Then it gave a rendition of 'Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer Do' and ended by thanking the audience for listening.", "Robot talks, sings", Sydney Morning Herald, June 18, 1961, p. 25 with musical accompaniment from Max Mathews. Arthur C. Clarke of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame visited his friend and colleague John Pierce at the Bell Labs Murray Hill facility and heard this remarkable speech synthesis demonstration. Clarke was so impressed that he used it in one of the climactic scenes of his novel and screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey,[http://www.lsi.usp.br/~rbianchi/clarke/ACC.Biography.html Arthur C. Clarke online Biography] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/19971211154551/http://www.lsi.usp.br/~rbianchi/clarke/ACC.Biography.html |date=1997-12-11 }} when the HAL 9000 computer sings the same song as it is being disabled by astronaut Dave Bowman.{{Cite web|url=http://www3.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/portal/!ut/p/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLd4w3MfQFSYGYRq6m-pEoYgbxjgiRIH1vfV-P_NxU_QD9gtzQiHJHR0UAAD_zXg!!/delta/base64xml/L0lJayEvUUd3QndJQSEvNElVRkNBISEvNl9BX0FLTC9lbl93dw!!?LMSG_CABINET=Bell_Labs&LMSG_CONTENT_FILE=History/Timeline/Timeline_Innovation_000100.xml|title=Text-To-Speech Synthesis|website=www3.alcatel-lucent.com|access-date=2017-03-14}}

John Kelly was an associate of Claude Shannon at Bell Labs. Together they developed a Game theory type method based on the principles of information theory developed by Shannon.[http://home.williampoundstone.net/Kelly.htm John Kelly by William Poundstone website] It is reported that Shannon and his wife Betty went to Las Vegas with M.I.T. mathematician Ed Thorp, and made very successful forays in roulette and blackjack using this method, later called the Kelly criterion, making a fortune as detailed in the book Fortune's Formula by William Poundstone[https://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0809046377 Poundstone, William: Fortune's Formula : The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street] and corroborated by the writings of Elwyn Berlekamp,[http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AuthorDetail/authorid/1554 Elwyn Berlekamp (Kelly's Research Assistant) Bio details] Kelly's research assistant in 1960 and 1962. Shannon and Thorp also applied the same theory to the stock market with even better results.[http://home.williampoundstone.net/ William Poundstone website]

Over the decades, John Kelly's scientific formula has become a part of mainstream investment theory{{citation |last1=Zenios |first1=S. A. |last2=Ziemba |first2=W. T. |title=Handbook of Asset and Liability Management |year=2006 |publisher=North Holland |isbn=978-0-444-50875-1 }} and the most prominent users, well-known and successful billionaire investors Warren Buffett,{{citation |last=Pabrai |first=Mohnish |title=The Dhandho Investor: The Low-Risk Value Method to High Returns |year=2007 |publisher=Wiley |isbn=978-0-470-04389-9 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/dhandhoinvestorl00pabr_0 }}{{cite web |url=http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=83664 |title=Ed Thorp's Genius Detailed In Scott Patterson's 'The Quants' |date=February 5, 2010 |website=www.gurufocus.com}} Bill Gross{{citation |last=Thorp |first=E. O. |title=The Kelly Criterion: Part II |date=September 2008 |journal=Wilmott Magazine }} and Jim Simons use Kelly methods. Warren Buffett met Thorp the first time in 1968. It's said that Buffett uses a form of the Kelly criterion in deciding how much money to put into various holdings. Mathematician and game theorist Elwyn Berlekamp, once an assistant to Kelly at Bell Labs, had applied the same logical algorithm for Axcom Trading Advisors, an alternative investment management company that he led after acquiring most of the equity of the co-founder and prior leader, mathematician James Ax. Axcom was the outsourced manager for Renaissance Technologies Corp hedge fund flagship, the Medallion Fund. In 1990, Axcom was acquired by its part-owner, fellow mathematician and founder of Renaissance, Jim Simons.The Man Who Solved the Market, Gregory Zuckerman (2019)

A heavy smoker who could go through six packs of cigarettes a day, Kelly died of a stroke on a Manhattan sidewalk at the age of 41 on March 18, 1965.{{Cite news|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2005-09-25/get-rich-heres-the-math|title = Get Rich: Here's the Math|newspaper = Bloomberg.com|date = 26 September 2005}}

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• [http://www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/ Bell Labs Text to Speech Systems] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060314071221/http://www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/ |date=2006-03-14 }}.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060711170006/http://www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/47321;jsessionid=aaa9har2OmrE7K American Scientist online: Bettor Math, article and book review by Elwyn Berlekamp].
• [http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AuthorDetail/authorid/1554 Elwyn Berlekamp (Kelly's Research Assistant) Bio details]
• [http://www.fortunesformula.com John Kelly and Edward O. Thorp]

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• [http://www.surebety.pl/artykul/kelly Kelly criterion] – description of Kelly criterion {{in lang|pl}}

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Category:1923 births

Category:1965 deaths

Category:20th-century American physicists

Category:Scientists at Bell Labs

Category:People from Corsicana, Texas

Category:University of Texas at Austin College of Natural Sciences alumni