This talk will outline a comprehensive new theory of the cerebral cortex. This theory provides the whole story: What do different types of cortical cells do?, How is sensory data processed?, How are motor commands generated?, What does frontal cortex do?, What is thinking?, In what representational system is information stored?, How do learning and memory work?, What are the elemental information processing operations carried out by the cerebral cortex?, What is sleep?. In short, this theory explains - in specific clear detail, the first-order picture of how the entire cerebral cortex works. Speaker Biography Robert Hecht-Nielsen, son of keyboard musician Elisabeth Laing Wilson Hecht-Nielsen (1915-1993) and interior decorator Robert Hecht-Nielsen (1894-1959), was born in San Francisco, California on 18 July 1947. A science and technology knowledge sponge from early childhood, as a teenager he was trained as an aircraft pilot. During university, Hecht-Nielsen was an avid student of pure mathematics (he received B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mathematics from Arizona State University in 1971 and 1974), who also devoured physics, anthropology, literature, and history. These years established a continuing involvement in research. Despite a lack of specific educational preparation, Hecht-Nielsen's entire career has been spent as a technologist and entrepreneur (except for some time out in the early years for employment as a pilot). Beginning in 1968 with neural network computer experiments and continuing later with foundation and management of neurocomputing research and development programs at Motorola (1979-1983) and TRW (1983-1986), Hecht-Nielsen was a pioneer in the development of neurocomputing applications. Since 1985 he has been on the faculty of the University of California, San Diego; where he is Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Member of the Institute for Neural Computation. In 1986 Hecht-Nielsen and his partner Todd Gutschow founded HNC Software Inc., which has applied neural network technology to a variety of commercial problems. Hecht-Nielsen is now Chief Scientist of HNC, a company with approximately 800 employees, annual product sales in excess of $100 000 000, and market capitalization of approximately $1 000 000 000. His current main interest is the ongoing development, experimental testing, and practical application of a theory of cerebral information processing. For his pioneering leadership in neural networks applications he was elected a Fellow of the IEEE.