The Faculty of Informatics of the Vienna University of Technology, the Women's Postgraduate College for Internet Technologies (WIT) and the Austrian Computer Society (OCG) invite to: ====================================================== TITLE: Peter Wegner - A prominent pioneer in computer science! On the occasion of the Austrian Cross of Honour ("Ehrenkreuz") for Science and Art First Class being awarded to Prof. Peter Wegner, Brown University, Rhode Island, USA ====================================================== WHEN: Thursday, October 19, 2006 16:00 - 19:00+ ====================================================== WHERE: Vienna University of Technology Neues Elektrotechnisches Institutsgebäude 1040 Wien, Gußhausstraße 27-29 Room EI 10, Ground floor Professor Peter Wegner, Austrian by birth, was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour ("Ehrenkreuz") for Science and Art First Class, which is the highest award for a foreign scientist, already in 1999. But the ceremony to be held in Vienna had to be postponed because Prof. Wegner was involved in a severe car accident on his way to the ceremony. It was conducted a while later without his presence. We are all the more looking forward to his upcoming visit, where he will hold a lecture as well as finally be recognized appropriately for his life's work. ====================================================== REGISTRATION Please register here: http://wit.tuwien.ac.at/events/wegner/index_en.html ====================================================== SCHEDULE: 16:00 - PART 1: Lecture and discussion Lecture "Interactive Principles of Problem Solving" Prof. Peter Wegner Brown University, Rhode Island "Some comments on Peter Wegner's ideas" Prof. Hermann Maurer TU Graz, Dean of the Faculty of Informatics Discussion 17:30: Break with refreshments 18:00 - PART 2: Tribute to Prof. Wegner Opening: Prof. Franz Rammerstorfer TU Vienna, Vicerector Prof. Gerald Steinhardt TU Vienna, Dean of the Faculty of Informatics "Why the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art First Class ('Ehrenkreuz') had been awarded to Prof. Wegner" N.N. Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture Laudatio: Prof. Christiane Floyd University of Hamburg, Faculty of Informatics Words of thanks Prof. Peter Wegner Moderation: O.Univ.-Prof. Dr. Gerti Kappel Business Informatics Group und WIT, TU Wien Reception: After the event there is the opportunity for an informal exchange of opinions at the buffet. ====================================================== ABSTRACT of the Lecture from Prof. Wegner Kurt Godel, educated in Vienna, disproved Hilbert's assumption that all mathematical theorems could be proved by logic in the 1930s. Turing in 1936 proved the related result that not all mathematical problems could be solved by computers because the halting problem was unsolvable, while Church showed that the lambda calculus could not solve all mathematical problems. Turing's work with Church in 1937-38 yielded the Church-Turing thesis that effective (algorithmic) methods for computing a mathematical function can always be computed by a Turing machine or the lambda calculus. However, some scholars in the 1960s alleged that all effective problems could be solved by Turing machines, expanding the concept of effectiveness beyond mathematical functions and negating Turing's result by questionable reinterpretation of the argument in his 1936 paper. They also strengthened the Church-Turing thesis to assert that Turing machines can compute (solve) anything that any computer can compute, and therefore that all solvable problems can be implemented by Turing machines, implying that Turing machines are an effective, complete model that inherently describes the substantive nature of computing. We believe that the extended thesis is inaccurate, though the original Church-Turing thesis is correct, and that this misperception has contributed to inaccuracies about the problem-solving power of Turing machines. In fact, the algorithmic Turing-machine model of computing is too narrow as a complete model for all problem solving. Interactive computing, which supports interaction with other computers or with the environment during computation, provides a broader concept of computer problem solving more appropriate to object-oriented, concurrent, and internet programming, that better captures the expanded class of current computer models. The talk will deal with this new interactive paradigm of computer problem solving. Download of papers: Principles of Problem Solving, Why Interaction is more Powerful than Algorithms ====================================================== ABOUT Prof. Wegner Peter Wegner emigrated from Vienna to London in 1939 at the age of 6. He received his batchelors degree in mathematics from London University in the 1950s and his PhD degree in computer science in the 1960s. He has worked at MIT, Harvard, and Cornell and became a Pofessor of Computer Science at Brown University in 1969. He has published books on Programming Languages and the Theory of Computation, and was editor for books and journals for the US Association for Computing Machines (ACM), He was awarded an Austrian prize for arts and sciences (Österreichisches Ehrenkreuz fur Wissenshaft und Kunst), for his research and his contribution to Austrian Computer Science. He will talk about his recent work on Interactive Computing, which explores new methods of computer problem solving, and present a new view of the discipline of computing. More info on his homepage: http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/pw/ ====================================================== FUNDING WIT is funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Science, and Culture (bmbwk) and the European Social Fund (ESF). This event is sponsored by Erste Bank. ====================================================== CONTACT PERSON at Vienna University of Technology Dr. Ulrike Pastner, pastner@wit.tuwien.ac.at, Tel. 58801-18815 ====================================================== Note Attendance free. Lectures in English. ====================================================== Die Fakultät für Informatik erhält Sponsorgelder u.a. von - Siemens AG Österreich - Dr. Karl Kleissner ------------------------------------------------------------------------