Parkinson Building Logic at Leeds

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British Logic
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2013

CiE 2013
Logic Colloquium
2013


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. John Truss, who is always willing to give helpful advice - to email him, just click on his photo.

NEWS
Applications are invited for an Associate Professorship in Pure Mathematics, with the aim of "supporting leading research across the areas of logic, algebra, analysis and geometry". The consolidation of the world-leading profile of the Leeds Logic Group will have a high priority, and we encourage applicants in the area to apply by the closing date of 19 May 2013. See these further details.

Also advertised at Leeds, are:

(a) A Lectureship in Pure Mathematics, for which applications in logic are particularly welcome, with a closing date of 28 May 2013 - see further details, and

(b) A 3-year postdoctoral position in model theory, to work on an EPSRC-funded project with Dugald Macpherson.

For enquiries about any of these positions, please contact Dugald Macpherson.

A major outcome of the Turing centenary is the publication by Elsevier of Alan Turing: His Work and Impact, edited by Barry Cooper from Leeds and Jan van Leeuwen from Utrecht University.

The British Logic Colloquium (BLC) 2013 will be held at the University of Leeds from the 5th to the 7th of September 2013, together with a symposium (4th-5th September 2013) in memory of Sir Michael A E Dummett FBA DLitt (1925-2011).

It is expected that there will also be a BLC Postgraduate logic meeting (3rd-4th September 2013).

John with Anita Burdman and Sol Feferman, and Michael Rathjen, after the 2008 Löb Lecture in Leeds.
JOHN DERRICK MEMORIAL EVENT, 30th January, 2013:
A special series of talks will be delivered on Wednesday January 30th in memory of John Derrick.
All talks are to take place in the MALL, Level 8 of the School of Mathematics, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT.
The schedule for the afternoon is as follows:
  • 14:45-15:00 Frank Drake: Reminiscences of John Derrick.
  • 15:00-15:45 Michael Rathjen: Provability and Unprovability.
  • 15:45-16:00 tea (Senior common room)
  • 16:00-16:20 John Derrick Jr. (Sheffield): Correct concurrent algorithms.
  • 16:30-17:15 Nicola Gambino (Palermo & Leeds): Bicategories of bimodules.
  • Dinner at the Red Chilli Restaurant 18:00. Please let Michael Rathjen [M.Rathjen @ leeds.ac.uk] know if you are coming for dinner.
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).

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.
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.
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.

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'. 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.
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.

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.

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.
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.
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. 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.
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 small poster CiE 2010 in Ponta Delgada, the Azores, Portugal.
CiE 2011 was in Sofia, Bulgaria.


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