The Taub Faculty of Computer Science Events and Talks

When this logician moved to theoretical computer science, this did not seem such a big deal to him. The transition was seamless. The transition to software engineering was radical. Microsoft research invited me to come, start a group and use my ideas to build tools. That was enticing and frightening. The chances of success seemed remote. But it worked, thanks to the engineering talent that my group was lucky to attract. Our Spec Explorer became indispensable when EU demanded that Microsoft provides high-level executable specifications of numerous communication protocols. I did not prove many logic theorems during my 20 years in software industry. Yet, looking back, I see the importance of logic - mostly logic framework rather than theorems - to software industry. Software engineers do formal logic day in and day out, even though they may not realize that. As a rule, they have not studied logic. Instead, they spent a lot of time studying calculus which they use rarely, if ever. I will try to illustrate why logic is relevant for software industry and why it is hard for software engineers to pick it up. Time permitting; I'll say a few words on the state of quantum computing. (The last five years of my Microsoft career I was with the Quantum Architecture and Computing group). Short Bio: Yuri Gurevich is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, recently retired from Microsoft Research where he worked 20 years as a Principal Researcher. He is ACM Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, EATCS Fellow, a foreign member of Academia Europaea, and Dr. Honoris Causa of a Belgian and Russian universities. =============================== Refreshments will be served from 14:15 Lecture starts at 14:30