VvL Logic at Large Lectures: And Logic Begat Computer Science

24-Apr-2021

When: Friday 28 May 20201, 15:30 - 17:45 / 18:45
Where: Online (Zoom, Gather.town)

To mark its relaunch the VvL (Dutch Association for Logic and Philosophy of Exact Sciences) has the privilege to announce its first outreach event in 2021. It will take place on Friday 28 May 2021. We are very pleased to announce that Professor Moshe Y. Vardi (Rice University) will give a public lecture entitled “And Logic Begat Computer Science” (see the abstract below).

The event will take place online using Zoom.

The talk will be followed by a short session where three commentators from different areas of logic and computer science will react to the talk and kick off the discussion which will then transition into a general Q&A with the audience. We are delighted to announce that the commentators will be: Johan van Benthem (UvA, Stanford, Tsinghua), Frank van Harmelen (VU Amsterdam, Wuhan), Marieke Huisman (U Twente).

The outreach event will be concluded by a social gathering on the virtual platform Gather.Town.

Registration is free, but necessary to receive links to Zoom and Gather.Town. For registration and more information, please visit: http://www.verenigingvoorlogica.nl/activiteiten.shtml

Programme:

15:30-15:50 Gathering/Informal discussion
15:50-16:00 An update on VvL and its activities
16:00-17:00 Public Lecture by Moshe Y. Vardi (Rice University): And Logic Begat Computer Science
17:00-17:45 Questions and discussion with commentators
17:45-18:45 Social Event on Gather.Town

For any questions, please feel free to contact the organisers:

Nick Bezhanishvili, University of Amsterdam (N.Bezhanishvili@uva.nl)
Davide Grossi, University of Groningen (D.Grossi@rug.nl)
Helle Hvid Hansen, University of Groningen (H.H.Hansen@rug.nl)
Dominik Klein, Utrecht University (D.Klein@uu.nl)
Peter van Ormondt, University of Amsterdam (P.vanOrmondt@uva.nl)

And Logic Begat Computer Science

Moshe Y. Vardi Rice University s Abstract: During the past fifty years there has been extensive, continuous, and growing interaction between logic and computer science. In fact, logic has been called "“the calculus of computer science"”. The argument is that logic plays a fundamental role in computer science, similar to that played by calculus in the physical sciences and traditional engineering disciplines. Indeed, logic plays an important role in areas of computer science as disparate as architecture (logic gates), software engineering (specification and verification), programming languages (semantics, logic programming), databases (relational algebra and SQL), artificial intelligence (automated theorem proving), algorithms (complexity and expressiveness), and theory of computation (general notions of computability). This non-technical talk will provide an overview of the unusual effectiveness of logic in computer science by surveying the history of logic in computer science, going back all the way to Aristotle and Euclid, and showing how logic actually gave rise to computer science.