Pearls of Computation Seminar Series

From January 2013, ICE-TCS organizes the Pearls of Computation seminar series. To begin with, the talks in this series will mostly focus on the work of some of the recipients of the ACM Turing Award (or of some other major award related to computer science) in an accessible way.

The Pearls of Computation talks at Reykjavik University are organized in collaboration with the School of Computer Science at Reykjavik University, CADIA, "CRESS: Center on Research in Engineering Software Systems", the Icelandic Mathematical Society, IIIM and the Mathematics Group at Reykjavik University.

Schedule (in chronological order)

Spring semester 2013

All talks will be held at 2pm in room M1.01 at Reykjavik University.

• Friday, 1 February 2013: Luca Aceto (School of Computer Science, Reykjavik University) will deliver a talk on R. Milner and his work. The talk is entitled The work of Robin Milner: Proof, language and interaction and will be held at 2pm in room M1.01 at Reykjavik University. See here for further information on this talk. Attendance is free and open to everyone.
  • Recording of the talk (slides and audio) in .avi format.
  • An interview with Robin Milner by Martin Berger.
  • Gordon D. Plotkin. Talk on YouTube entitled Robin Milner: A Craftsman of Tools for the Mind.
• Friday, 15 February 2013: Eyjólfur Ingi Ásgeirsson (School of Science and Engineering, Reykjavik University) will deliver a talk on E.W. Dijkstra. The talk is entitled The shortest path to beautiful code ( - DEATH TO GOTO - ) and will be held at 2pm in room M1.01 at Reykjavik University. See here for further information on this talk. Attendance is free and open to everyone.
  • Recording of the talk (slides and audio) in .avi format.
  • Slides with the three "silly games" mentioned in the talk. [Solutions]
  • An Interview With Edsger W. Dijkstra by Thomas J. Misa, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 53 No. 8, Pages 41-47.
  • E. W. Dijkstra Archive.
  • K.R. Apt, Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (1930 -- 2002): A Portrait of a Genius. Formal Aspects of Computing, 14, pp. 92-98, 2002.
• Friday, 5 April 2013: Kristinn R. Thorisson (School of Computer Science, Reykjavik University) will deliver a talk on the work of Marvin Minsky. The talk is entitled Marvin Minsky: Pioneer, Critic, Optimist and will be held at 2pm in room M1.01 at Reykjavik University. See here for further information on this talk. Attendance is free and open to everyone.
  • Recording of the talk (slides and audio) in .mp4 format. (Warning: the file is about 500 Mb.)
  • Human Interface video played by Kristinn during the talk.
  • NOVA Interview with Marvin Minsky.
• Friday, 3 May 2013: Henning Úlfarsson (School of Computer Science, Reykjavik University) will deliver a talk on the work of Donald E. Knuth. The talk is entitled Donald Knuth: The great inventor and will be held at 1pm in room M1.03 at Reykjavik University. Note the non-standard time and room!
  • My advice to young people - Donald Knuth [video].
  • An interview with Domald Knuth on NPR Radio.
  • Steve Jobs meets Knuth.
• Friday, 17 May 2013: Björn Þór Jónsson (School of Computer Science, Reykjavik University) will deliver a talk on E.F. Codd and the relation model. The talk is entitled Codd and the mathematical model that turned into a multi-billion dollar industry and will be held at 2pm in room M1.01 at Reykjavik University. See here for further information on this talk.
  • Recording of the talk (slides and audio) in .avi format.
  • The 1995 SQL Reunion: People, Projects, and Politics (Edited by Paul McJones), SRC Technical Note 1997 – 018. Quoting from the preface, this "is an informal but first-hand oral account of the birth of SQL, of the project – System R – from which it sprang, and of some of the other relational database systems."

Further details on these events will be posted on this page regularly.