Category Archives: VSL Blog

Ackermann Award Ceremony

Guest post by Anuj Dawar (President of the EACSL)

The Ackermann Award is given by the European Association for Computer Science Logic annually since 2005 to an outstanding doctoral dissertation in the area of Logic in Computer Science. The tenth Ackermann award will be presented on Friday, 18 July, at 17.00 in Hörsaal 1.

The winner of the 2014 Ackermann Award is Michael Elberfeld for his thesis “Space and Circuit Complexity of Monadic Second-Order Definable Problems on Tree-Decomposable Structures”. He will present a lecture on his thesis work at the ceremony.

Moshe Vardi

Welcoming Comments at the VSL Opening Reception

Guest post by Moshe Vardi

Moshe VardiWhen John F. Kennedy became president of the United States, he invited all US Nobel Laureates for a dinner at the White House. At his welcoming remarks he commented that this was the greatest assemblage of intellect in the White House, “since Thomas Jefferson used to dine here, alone!” This magnificent hall contains now about 1,000 logicians. It is probably the greatest assemblage of intellect in Vienna since Kurt Goedel lived here. :-)

This morning Dana Scott told us about the amazing period of the Vienna Circle in the first part of the 20th Century, when Vienna, unquestionably, was the logic capital of the world. The apex of that period was in 1930-1, when Goedel published first the Completeness Theorem and then the Incompleteness Theorem. Unfortunately, that period ended rather tragically. Hans Hahn, Goedel’s PhD advisor, died rather young, at age 54, in 1934. Rudolf Carnap, concerned with the rise of Nazism, emigrated to the US in 1935. Moritz Schlick, the key organizer of the Vienna Circle, was assassinated on his way to class in 1936. In 1939, after the 1938 annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, Goedel left Vienna and made his way to the United States via a circuitous route. So died logic in Vienna, 75 years ago.

And logic stayed dead in Vienna until the mid 1980s, about 30 years ago, when Matthias Baaz, Georg Gottlob, and Alexander Leitsch, brought it back to life. Today, logic again is flourishing in Vienna, in particular, and in Austria in general, So it is entirely appropriate that today, 75 years after logic died in Austria, we celebrate its revival in the 2014 Vienna Summer of Logic.

1000+ logicians gathering at Vienna’s town hall for the Mayor’s reception. According to Moshe Vardi "the highest concentration of brain power in Vienna since Gödel lived here."

© VSL 2014 / Photography: Nadja Meister

Toller Start: Über 100 Leute in erster LogicLounge

Logic Lounge at Heuer am Karlsplatz: Over a 100 guests enjoying the conversation between Christos Papadimitriou and Helmut Veith on the pancake stacking problem (as solved together with Bill Gates) and the nexus of sex and algorithms

Wie stapelt Bill Gates seine Pfannkuchen? Wie verpackt man die Geschichte der Logik in Comics, und was hat Sex mit Algorithmen zu tun? Über 100 Leute hörten heute in der LogicLounge am Karlsplatz Christos Papadimitriou und Helmut Veith. Mehr davon ab morgen:

http://vsl2014.at/public-events/
https://www.facebook.com/events/311078059050577/


The pancake sorting problem

The pancake sorting problem

How does Bill Gates sort a stack of pancakes? How to present the history of logic in a comic, and what has sex got to do with algorithms? Over 100 people attended today’s LogicLounge with Christos Papadimitriou und Helmut Veith. More LogicLounge starting tomorrow:

http://vsl2014.at/public-events/
https://www.facebook.com/events/311078059050577/