Related papers: Boris (Boaz) Trakhtenbrot -- The Beginning
Over the last decades, a class of important mathematical results have required an ever increasing amount of human effort to carry out. For some, the help of computers is now indispensable. We analyze the implications of this trend towards…
The design of any technical Computer Science course must involve its context within the institution's CS program, but also incorporate any new material that is relevant and appropriately accessible to students. In many institutions, theory…
An early phase of theoretical high energy physics in Israel specifically that connected with Yuval Ne'eman and a small group of my classmates, myself, and several others who worked around him after his return to Israel on the "Eight-fold…
Nowadays, technology has become dominant in the daily lives of most people around the world. From children to older people, technology is present, helping in the most diverse daily tasks and allowing accessibility. However, many times these…
Although it has been notoriously difficult to pin down precisely what it is that makes life so distinctive and remarkable, there is general agreement that its informational aspect is one key property, perhaps the key property. The unique…
In 1686 in his Discours de Metaphysique, Leibniz points out that if an arbitrarily complex theory is permitted then the notion of "theory" becomes vacuous because there is always a theory. This idea is developed in the modern theory of…
This is the first part of an oral history interview on the lifelong involvement of Joel Lebowitz in the development of statistical mechanics. Here the covered topics include the formative years, which overlapped the tragic period of Nazi…
Since its existence, the computer tool has often supported mathematicians, whether it is to implement an approximation method (numerical calculation of a root, of an integral, ...) or to simulate a phenomenon (geometric in nature,…
The world of mathematics is often considered abstract, with its symbols, concepts, and topics appearing unrelated to physical objects. However, it is important to recognize that the development of mathematics is fundamentally influenced by…
This paper, which is dedicated to Alan Turing on the 50th anniversary of his death, gives an overview and discusses the philosophical implications of incompleteness, uncomputability and randomness.
The central nervous system and particularly the brain was designed to control the life cycle of a living being. With increasing size and sophistication, in mammals, the brain became capable of exercising significant control over life. In…
In this article, I trace the early historical developments that ultimately led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Even after the completion of weapons, many scientists continued to argue that nuclear armaments were indispensable for…
We survey briefly the life and work of P. L. Chebyshev, and his ongoing influence. We discuss his contributions to probability, number theory and mechanics, his pupils and mathematical descendants, and his role as the founding father of…
In his Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, Rene Descartes sought ``clear and certain knowledge of all that is useful in life.'' Almost three centuries later, in ``The foundations of…
This paper provides the first comprehensive description of the Z1, the mechanical computer built by the German inventor Konrad Zuse in Berlin from 1936 to 1938. The paper describes the main structural elements of the machine, the high-level…
This is the memoir of Brian Dennis - his life story to date, and his involvement with high energy solar physics.
A 17th-century oil painting by an unknown artist, once owned by the Tayler family and now in the collection of Trinity College, Cambridge, is currently identified as a portrait of a young Isaac Barrow. The sitter is shown pointing to a…
Through history, the human being tried to relay its daily tasks to other creatures, which was the main reason behind the rise of civilizations. It started with deploying animals to automate tasks in the field of agriculture(bulls),…
Situation theory is a mathematical theory of meaning introduced by Jon Barwise and John Perry. It has evoked great theoretical and practical interest and motivated the framework of a few `computational' systems. PROSIT is the pioneering…
No matter how much the world of computing changes, system design remains crucial. While most people try to learn it through quick tutorials or AI-generated summaries, there is no better way to master the field than by studying the original…