Why Computational Theory?

In the field of computing, the theorists have had a much clearer vision than the practitioners. Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) the first programmer never saw the computer she was programming, Babbages’s Analytical Engine, completed, but she wrote in 1840 about the possibility of using computers to compose music.

Alan Turing invented the purely theoretical “Turing machine” before computers became a practical reality, He, too, thought deeply about the possibility of using the computer for tasks other than routine calculations and proposed the “Turing test” to determine whether a computer program had really achieved artificial intelligence.

More “practical” people have often been notoriously wrong in their rather narrow estimations of the possibilities of computing:-

 
“I think there is a world market for about five computers.”
Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943.

 
“There is no reason for anyone to have a computer in their home.”
Kenneth Olson, President of Digital Equipment, 1977.

 
“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
Bill Gates, CEO, Microsoft, 1981.

 
We hope that this weekend will open the doors to a wider view of computing.

Our invited foreign speakers

Professor Bruno Poizat

University of Lyons-1 France

Bruno Poizat is a leading logician. He will be talking about “How to compute?” with reference to problems of complexity and the famous unsolved problem “P=NP?”

Professor Poizat will also be giving a course of four evening lectures at Bilgi University on 1, 2, 3 and 6 May.

Doctor Alexei Stolboushkin

Alexei Stolboushkin is a computational theorist and logician. Previously a professor of Computing at the University of California at Los Angeles, he now works as a designer of object oriented data bases.

Doctor Andrew Hodges

Wadham College, University of Oxford

Andrew Hodges is the author of two books about Turing and his thought and an active mathematician.

Professor Carlos Martin-Vide

University of Tarragona Spain.

Carlos Martin-Vide is active in research on computational linguistics and also on computing with membranes and DNA
 
 

"Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."

E. W. Dijkstra