robert k logan born august 31 1939 originally trained as a physicist is a media ecologist he received from mit a bs in 1961 and a phd in 1965 under the supervision of francis e low after two postdoctoral appointments as a research associate at the university of illinois at urbanachampaign 19657 and the university of toronto 19678 he became a physics professor in 1968 at toronto until his retirement in 2005 he is now professor emeritus he is a fellow of st michaels college university of toronto the origins institute at mcmaster university and institute of biocomplexity and informatics at the university of calgarywhile active at the university of toronto in addition to mathbased physics courses he taught an interdisciplinary course the poetry of physics which led to his collaboration with marshall mcluhan and his research in media ecology and the evolution of language his best known works are the alphabet effect based on a paper logan coauthored with mcluhan which develops the hypothesis that the alphabet codified law monotheism abstract science and deductive logic form an autocatalytic set of ideas that developed uniquely between 2000 bc and 500 bc between the tigriseuphrates river system and the aegean sea the sixth language learning a living in the internet age which deals with the hypothesis that speech writing math science computing and the internet form an evolutionary chain of languages the extended mind the emergence of language the human mind and culture develops a model for the origin of language the human mind and culture using ideas from the sixth languagelogan has also been chief scientist at strategic innovation lab at ocad university in toronto ontario since 2007 and a senior fellow at the universitys strategic innovation lab slab part of his work at ocad involved a languagebased project to change popular attitudes about the environment which resulted in the coining of the word depletistin september 2010 logan founded the mcluhan legacy network a nonprofit organization based in toronto dedicated to renewing the legacy of marshall mcluhan and celebrating the centenary of mcluhans birth in 2011