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The Leeds Logic Group is one of the largest and most active in
Europe, with an international reputation for research in
several of the main areas of mathematical logic - computability
theory, model theory, set theory and foundations, proof theory,
and in applications to algebra, analysis and theoretical
computer science.
The group has been very successful in
obtaining EPSRC and EU support for Research Students and
Post-Doctoral Fellows, and has been the focus of extensive
international collaboration via various
research projects and networks in proof theory,
computability theory and model theory. Our past postgraduates
and researchers
have been very successful in moving to research or teaching
positions in Mathematics and Computer Science departments
around the world.
Further details of individual staff's research interests can
be found on their homepages, accessed via the links
on the left. Applications to visit or to
pursue research within the Leeds Logic Group are always
welcome. We have a large, lively, and very international
community of faculty, research students and postdoctoral fellows.
For full information on how to
apply to do research in Pure Mathematics at Leeds,
please contact
the Pure Mathematics
Postgraduate Tutor, Prof.
Michael
Rathjen.
Alternatively, you can contact
Prof. Dugald Macpherson,
who is always
willing to give helpful advice, and who coordinates
EU MALOA funding of
PhD students in logic at Leeds - just click
on his photograph.
NEWS
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The 2012
Löb Lecturer is Professor Angus
Macintyre FRS of Queen Mary, University of London.
Prof. Macintyre was awarded the Pólya Prize in 2003, and
became President of the London Mathematical Society
in 2009.
Prof. Macintyre is a world-leading logician, and an engrossing speaker
who has a wide engagement with mathematics. He gave
a timely
2011 Gresham Lecture on
Undecidable and Decidable Problems in Mathematics:
A survey and some reflections, for the
centenary of Turing's birth (click to see a video online).
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On June 23rd, 1912,
Alan Turing
was born in London, and went on to have a huge impact on logic, computing,
cryptography and artificial intelligence.
Barry Cooper
from Leeds, an academic descendent of Turing, chairs
the Turing Centenary Advisory
Committee (TCAC), which will coordinate the
Alan Turing Year
celebrating this unique anniversary. Prof. Cooper is also a co-organiser
of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences 6-month programme
on Semantics and Syntax:
A Legacy of Alan Turing,
9 January - 6 July 2012 in Cambridge.
And (with Leeds alumnus Mariya Soskova) he co-chairs the INI workshop
THE INCOMPUTABLE
at the Kavli Royal Society International Centre
Chicheley Hall, 12 - 15 June, 2012. He is Chair of the jury for the
Turing
Centenary Research Fellowship and Scholar Competition (with honorary
chairs Sir Roger Penrose and Rodney Brooks).
A book:
The Once and Future
Turing - Computing the World,
co-edited with Turing's biographer
Andrew Hodges, is
in preparation; and a book of Turing's works, with commentaries by leading experts,
co-edited with
Jan van Leeuwen for Elsevier:
Alan Turing - His Work and Impact.
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The Leeds Logic Group mourns the passing of John Derrick, a remarkable and much loved member -
here is Garth Dales (an 'honorary logician') writing on John for the London Mathematical Society:
John Derrick, former Lecturer in the Department of Pure Mathematics at the University of Leeds,
died on 8 December 2011. John was born in Paris in 1935, left for England at the outbreak of
war with his family on 'the last boat out of Biarritz', and later attended Caterham School in Surrey
as a boarder. He read Mathematics at University College London, and, after graduating in 1956,
completed teacher-training at the London University Institute of Education. He taught at
Ottershaw School, where he was given responsibility for the whole of mathematics teaching in the Sixth Form.
At the beginning of 1963, John took up a lectureship at Leeds. He was a lively member of the growing
group of mathematical logicians led by M.H. Löb. His interest in Set Theory led him into fruitful
collaboration with colleagues in mathematics and in philosophy. Later, his interests focused on
computer-assisted proof, and he became Deputy Director of the Leeds Centre for Theoretical Computer
Science in 1992. John was a dedicated teacher, spending much time with students.
John was involved in a wide range of extra-mural activities, serving as President of the Yorkshire
Branch of the Mathematical Association 1968-69.
He travelled extensively to logic conferences and made many friends, revelling
especially in 'adventures' to Eastern Europe during the 1960s and 1970s.
Between October 1970 and March 1972 he was an Associate Professor at the University of Orléans.
Following some years of ill-health, John took early retirement in July 1998. He is survived
by his wife Margaret, daughter Cathy, son John (now Professor of Computer Science in Sheffield), and
three grandchildren.
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Anand Pillay
from the Leeds Logic Group gave the 2011
Gödel Lecture at Logic Colloquium 2011 in
Barcelona, July 11-16, 2011. Recent
Developments in Model Theory was held in France, June, 2011, in
honour of Prof. Pillay on his sixtieth birthday.
On 27th October 2011, Prof. Barry Cooper
received an Honorary Degree (Degree Honoris Causa) at Sofia University, Bulgaria, where he
gave an academic lecture entitled Computing in an Incomputable World.
Barry also gave the 2011 Courtauld Lecture
of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical
Society (founded in 1781)
to an audience of over 350 at the Northern College of Music, February 10, 2011.
The title of his talk was
The
Incomputable Alan Turing.
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Maths 1001:
Absolutely Everything That Matters
in Mathematics is a
new book written by Leeds Logic Group
alumnus and Visiting Fellow Richard Elwes. Richard has a new book,
How to Build a Brain: And 34
Other Really Interesting Uses of Mathematics due out
in 2011. See
Large cardinals: maths shaken by the 'unprovable'.
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Leeds Symposium on
Proof Theory and Constructivism, 3-16 July 2009, included a
Conference on Proofs and Computations in honour of
Stan
Wainer's 65th
birthday, and a Gentzen Centenary Conference, celebrating the birth of
Gerhard
Gentzen, founder of structural proof theory.
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 In 2009, the
Leeds
Logic Group welcomed Dr.
Peter
M. Schuster.
Having
taken his doctorate at the University of Munich,
he has
been active in recent years, co-editing
books and special issues of journals, speaking at meetings, and
authoring more than 45 research articles.
Contributions include
reverse and choice-free mathematics; formal topology; and
constructive set theory. In 2008 the
Humboldt Foundation awarded him a
Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship.
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The 2008
Löb Lecturer was
Professor Solomon
Feferman from
Stanford University. An ex-student of Alfred Tarski, Sol Feferman received the
Rolf Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy for 2003, is an ex-President
of the ASL, and is Editor-in-Chief of the Gödel Collected
Works.
Anita Burdman Feferman, author of From Trotsky to Gödel:
The Life of Jean Van Heijenoort, and (with Sol)
Alfred Tarski: Life
and Logic
gave a fascinating talk on Tarski before the Löb Lecture.
Some photos from the two lectures,
thanks to Bahareh Afshari.
Anand Pillay
from Leeds will give the
21st Tarski Lecture at UC Berkeley.
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Recently rejoined the Leeds Logic Group is
Andrew
Lewis.
He has been awarded a prestigious Royal
Society Research Fellowship (only 30 granted nationally)
to work at Leeds for 5 years
(renewable for up to a further 5 years).
Andy was an invited speaker at
Logic Colloquium 2006
in Nijmegen, and at the 2008
Association for Symbolic Logic Annual Meeting in Irvine, California.
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The Leeds Algebra and Logic Group has been selected as a
University
Gold
Peak of Excellence, in recognition of its world-leading
research and its international renown.
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Martin Löb, a central figure in the development of
CMathematical Logic in the UK, and founder of the
Leeds Logic Group, has died in Holland at the age of 85.
For an account of his life and work, see the
Guardian Obituary by Stan Wainer,
or this Amsterdam webpage.
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MATHLOGAPS -
the EU Marie Curie EST project,
Mathematical Logic
and Applications,
involving Leeds, Lyon, Munich and
Manchester, recently finished. Its successor,
starting in 2009, is the
Marie Curie ITN project
MALOA, also
coordinated from Leeds by
Dugald
Macpherson.
Leeds was a main
participant in
the Marie Curie model theory network
MODNET, 2005-08.
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Barry
Cooper has been elected President of the
Association Computability in Europe. CiE conferences held include
CiE
2005 in Amsterdam,
CiE
2006 in Swansea,
CiE
2007 in Siena,
CiE
2008 in Athens,
CiE
2009 in Heidelberg, and
CiE
2010 in Ponta Delgada, the Azores, Portugal.
CiE
2011 will be in Sofia, Bulgaria.
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