CartesianSeminar

The Potsdam Cartesian Seminar is an open topic weekly seminar that was started in 2000 by Rupert Klein and Cezar Ionescu at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and is located at the Institute of Computer Science of the University of Potsdam since 2014. Guided by the rules René Descartes formulated in his “Discours de la méthode” we aim for a thorough understanding of the texts we read.

Participants

Present

Sebastian Böhne, Nicola Botta, Bastian Franke, Leo Günther, Raphael Kluge, Tom Kranz, Tim Richter, Margarete Wohlleber

Past

Denis Andreev, Alexander Benedict Behrens, Marc Beilcke, Nikolas Bertrand, Nuria Brede, Frederick Brumm, Julian Bruns, Margrit Dittmann, Georg Duchrau, Lucien Fumagalli, Marcus Funke, Josephine Funken, Christoph Glinzer, Hanna Gloyna, Jan Heuer, Cezar Ionescu, Ingram Jaccard, Henrik Jürges, Niklas Kämmer, Manuel Keilmann, Thomas Kern, Lucas Kerschke, Aleksandra Khatova, Christoph Kreitz, Lara Kursawe, David Simon Kuska, Jan Lemcke, Marc Fabian Lindner, David Linkiewicz, Philomena Moek, Tim Münzner, Florian Raab, Tarek Ramadan, Leo Repp, Eva Richter, Juliane Scherlitzki, Carla Schreiber, Matthias Seidel, Mika Strozyk, Jessica Trebst, Marius Wawerek, Luise Werner, Max Wiedenhöft, Axel Wiepke, Jonas Winter, Oliver Zernikow, David Zimmek

Guests are always welcome!

Place and time

Tuesdays, 10-12 am
Institute of Computer Science, University of Potsdam
Campus Golm (An der Bahn 2)
Building 70, Room 1.52 –> find on OpenStreetMap

For any question, please contact Tim Richter (tim@cs.uni-potsdam.de).

Current reading (summer term 2024)

starting April 9

• Introductory lessons on Type Theory for new participants

Archive

Winter term 2023/2024

starting March 5

• Halpern : Actual Causality

starting January 9

• Euklid : Elements, also see the notes

November 7 - December 19

• Halfant, Sussmann - 1988 - Abstraction in Numerical Methods, also see our agda-code and the Notes.

October 17 - November 1

• Introductory lessons on Type Theory for new participants

Summer term 2023

starting July 11

• Swierstra - 2021 - A correct-by-contruction conversion to combinators, also see our agda-code.

starting June 20

• Schönfinkel - 1924 - Über die Bausteine der mathematischen Logik

June 6 and June 13

• Khuller, Mitchell - 1990 - On a triangle counting problem

April 18th - Mai 30

• starting from Wikipedia : Bertrand paradox (probability) discussed some elementary probablilty theory

Winter term 2022/2023

starting February 14

• Coquand, Huet - 1986 - The calculus of constructions

October 18 - February 7

• Jeremy Gibbons - 1999 - A pointless derivation of radix sort Here are our notes: Gibbons.lagda.org

Summer term 2022

starting June 28

• Richard Dedekind - 1888 - Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen

Mai 25 - June 21

• Philip Wadler - 2015 - Propositions as types

April 19 - Mai 17

• Chapter 3 “Types in Mathematics” of the book “Domain-Specific Languages of Mathematics” by Patrik Jansson, Cezar Ionescu and Jean-Philippe Bernardy. Here is the book’s git repository.

Winter term 2021/2022

starting January 18

• Steward Shapiro - 2005 - Higher Order Logic

starting December 14

• Dmitry Fuchs, Serge Tabachnikov - “Can a Number be Approximately Rational?” - Lecture 1 of “Mathematical Omnibus: Thirty Lectures on Classic Mathematics”. Here is an overview and an Agda implementation of the “trick”.

starting October 25

• Jeremy Gibbons - 2021 - How to design co-programs. See notes and code scratchpad.

Sommer term 2021

starting July 6

• Winkler - 2001(?) - Wie macht man 2 aus 1? Das Paradoxon von Banach-Tarski. See notes.

starting May 18

• Cabalar, Ferraris - 2007 - Propositional Theories are Strongly Equivalent to Logic Programs, see also the Notes, Jan’s formalisation in Agda and this more preliminary Agda-Code.

April 13 to May 11

• Granovetter - 1978 - Threshold models of collective behaviour, see also this jupyter notebook and the seminar notes of April 20th and April 27th.

Winter term 2020/2021

February 23 and March 2: Jonas on the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma

• Press, Dyson - 2012 - Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma contains strategies that dominate any evolutionary opponent

February 9 and 16: Max on Evolutionary Game Theory

• Chapter 7 “Evolutionary Game Theory” of Easley, Kleinberg : Networks, Crowds, and Markets

January 26 and February 2: Jonas on Clustering

• Kleinberg - 2002 - An Impossibility Theorem for Clustering.pdf

January 12 and 19: Tim Münzner on Computer Vision and Convolutional Neural Networks

• Kurenkov - 2020 - A Brief History of Neural Nets and Deep Learning - Part 2

December 15 and January 5: Niklas on Basics of Supervised Machine Learning (Perceptron, Gradient Descent)

• Kurenkov - 2020 - A Brief History of Neural Nets and Deep Learning - Part 1

December 1 and December 8: David on Cellular Automata

• Berto, Tagliabue - 2017 - Cellular Automata (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

starting November 3

• Bernardy, Ionescu, Jansson : Domain specific languages of mathematics (checkout the github repository, make sure you have installed latex and lhs2TeX, and do a “make” in subdirectory “L”. This should produce “DSLsofMathBook.pdf”.)

September 22 - October 27

• Graham Hutton - 1997 - Conceps of Concurrency

Summer term 2020

July 14 and 21: Fabian on Shellcodes

• Barral, Ferradi, Géraud, Jaloyan, Naccache - 2016 - ARMv8 Shellcodes from ‘A’ to ‘Z’

June 30 and July 10: Hanna on Probabilistic Algorithms

• Rabin - 1976 - Probabilistic Algorithms, in J.F.Traub (ed) - Algorithms and Complexity - New directions and recent results, see also this github repo

June 16 and June 23rd: Marius on Tolman

• Edward Tolman - 1948 - Cognitive maps in rats and men

starting April 21st

• Bird - 1986 - An introduction to the theory of lists, see also this lecture video and this github repo.

Winter term 2019/2020

starting February 25th: on Lawvere’s ETCS

• Leinster - 2012 - Rethinking Set Theory

January 21 to February 10th: Christoph on Random Walks and Electric Networks

Selection from

• Doyle, Snell - 1984(2000) - Random Walks and Electric Networks

January 7 and 14th: Nico on Graphical Languages

We read the first half of

• Coecke - 2016 - From quantum foundations via natural language meaning to a theory of everything and selected material from
• Coecke, Kissinger - 2017 - Picturing Quantum Processes

starting November 19th: Dynamical Systems

• Kuznetsov - Elements of Applied Bifurcation Theory - we read the introductory chapter 1

starting October 8th: Sebastian on Manfred Spitzer’s “Digitale Demenz” - continuation

• Spitzer - 2012 - Digitale Demenz
• Appel, Schreiner - 2014 - Digitale Demenz? Mythen und wissenschaftliche Befundlage zur Auswirkung von Internetnutzung
• Spitzer - 2015 - Über vermeintliche neue Erkenntnisse zu den Risiken und Nebenwirkungen digitaler Informationstechnik
• Appel, Schreiner - Leben in einer digitalen Welt: Wissenschaftliche Befundlage und problematische Fehlschlüsse - Stellungnahme zur Erwiderung von Spitzer

Summer term 2019

September 17th, 24th, October 1st: Blockchain technology

• Nakamoto - 2008 - Bitcoin - A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
• Mazières - 2015 - The Stellar Consensus Protocol - A Federated Model for Internet-level Consensus

starting July 23rd: Jan on Answer set programming

• Janhunen, Niemelä - 2016 - The Answer Set Programming Paradigm
• Lifschitz - 2016 - Answer Sets and the Language of Answer Set Programming
• Gebser, Schaub - 2016 - Modeling and Language Extension

July 2nd, 9th, 16th: Nicola on responsibility and blame

• Chockler, Halpern - 2004 - Responsibility and Blame: A Structural Model Approach

starting June 4th: Sebastian on Manfred Spitzer’s “Digitale Demenz”

• Spitzer - 2012 - Digitale Demenz
• Appel, Schreiner - 2014 - Digitale Demenz? Mythen und wissenschaftliche Befundlage zur Auswirkung von Internetnutzung
• Spitzer - 2015 - Über vermeintliche neue Erkenntnisse zu den Risiken und Nebenwirkungen digitaler Informationstechnik

May 21st, 28 : Nicola on thermodynamics

• Straumann - 1986 - Thermodynamik

April 16 - May 14 :

• Hughes - 1989 - Why functional programming matters - see also
  • the Keynote by John Hughes and Mary Sheeran at Lambda Days 2017
  • Haskell implementation of Hughes’ examples (incomplete): hughes.lhs

Winter term 2018/2019

19. and 26.02.2019 : Jessica on DNA computing

• Amos, Paun, Rozenberg, Salomaa - 2002 - Topics in the theory of DNA computing

with sidesteps to

• Adleman - 1994 - Molecular computation of solutions to combinatorial problems
• Salomaa - 1981 - Jewels of formal language theory

starting January 2019: Nicola on thermodynamics

• Straumann - 1986 - Thermodynamik
• Bridgman - 1922 - Dimensional Analysis

11. and 18.12.2018 : Luise on Hans Liebigs “Konrad Zuse - Erfinder des Computers”

• Hans Liebig - 2011 - Konrad Zuse, Erfinder des Computers - im Vergleich mit Alan Turing und John v. Neumann
• online Simulation of Zuse’s Z3

September 2018

• Jan von Plato: The Development of Proof Theory (SEP)

with sidesteps to

• Gentzen - 1935 - Untersuchungen über das logische Schliessen I und II
• Wadler - 2015 - Propositions as types - see also Video

Summer term 2018

June 2018 - Georg on “Ernst Mach: The Science of Mechanics”

• Mach - 1919 - The Science of Mechanics
• Mach - 1897 - Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung - historisch-kritisch dargestellt (3rd ed)
• Ernst Mach - 1912 - Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung - historisch-kritisch dagestellt
  • see latex copy Introduction and parts of Chpt 2 by Bernd Paysan

March 2018

• Richard von Mises: Wahrscheinlichkeit, Statistik und Wahrheit
• Richard von Mises: Probability, Statistics, and Truth
• see also: Interpretations of Probability (SEP)

Winter term 2017/18

proposals for summer term 2018

• Nicola:
  • Richard von Mises - 1928 - Wahrscheinlichkeit, Statistik und Wahrheit
  • Thomas Kuhn: Black Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity 1894-1912 (Chicago & London, 1978)
• Tim:
  • McBride - Turing-Completeness Totally Free

January 2018

• Ulrike Herrmann - Kein Kapitalismus ist auch keine Lösung - Kapitel 3 on Adam Smith
• see also: Adam Smith’s Moral and Political Theory (SEP)

October 2017 : Pavlović, Escardó - 2001 - Calculus in Coinductive Form

• we’ll read the version with notes by Favio Miranda from the Seminar “Recursion for Coalgebras” 2001
• published paper: Pavlović, Escardó - 1998 - Calculus in Coinductive Form (IEEE Symposium Logic in Computer Science)
• see also: Continuity and Infinitesimals (SEP)
• Nicola’s Idris formalization: CoinductiveCalculus.lidr

Summer term 2017

• Ross - Game Theory (SEP)
  • see also: 2bridges.txt

Winter term 2016/17

• presented by Axel: The Turing Test (SEP)
• Paul Lorenzen - 1965 - Methodisches Denken

Summer term 2016

• Noam Chomsky - 1956 - Three Models for the Description of Language
• Hans Wäsche - 1959 - Eine Bemerkung zur Paradoxie des Zeno von Elea über “Achilles und die Schildkröte”

Winter term 2015/16

• Korb - 1977 - Einführung in die Spieltheorie mit Beispielen aus der Wirtschaftspraxis
• Brown, Priest - 2004 - Chunk and permeate, a paraconsistent inference strategy. part I - the infinitesimal calculus
• presented by Carla and Thomas: Dirk Hoffmann - 2011 - Grenzen der Mathematik - Kapitel 4 : Beweistheorie
• Ingeborg Brettschneider-Clasen - 1967 - Das Antinomieproblem

Summer term 2015

• Einstein - 1921 - Über die spezielle und allgemeine Relativitätstheorie
• presented by Frederick:
  • Turing - 1950 - The Word Problem in Semi-Groups with Cancellation
  • Boone - 1958 - An Analysis of Turing’s “The Word Problem in Semi-Groups with Cancellation”

Winter term 2014/15

• Abel, Pientka, Thibodeau, Setzer: Copatterns - Programming Infinite Structures by Observations
• presented by Tim: Ihringer - 2003 - Allgemeine Algebra
  • see also: Hyland, Power - 2007 - The Category Theoretic Understanding of Universal Algebra - Lawvere Theories and Monads

Summer term 2014

• Planck - 1932 - Der Kausalbegriff in der Physik
• Planck - 1908 - Die Einheit des physikalischen Weltbildes
• Turner - 2004 - Total functional programming
• Wells - 1995 - Communicating Mathematics - Unseful Ideas from Computer Science

Winter term 2013/14

• Tarski - 1986(1966) - What are logical notions?
• Tarski - 1935 - Der Wahrheitsbegriff in den formalisierten Sprachen

Summer term 2013

• continued: Frege - Begriffsschrift
• Hilbert - 1918 - Axiomatisches Denken
• Frege - 1891 - Function und Begriff

Winter term 2012/13

• Turing - 1936 - On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem
• Sebastian presents Frege - 1879 - Begriffsschrift

Summer term 2012

• Tarski - 1936 - Grundlegung der wissenschaftlichen Semantik
• Lawvere - 1969 - Diagonal Arguments and Cartesian Closed Categories

Winter term 2011/12

• Kolmogorov - 1931 - Zur Deutung der intuitionistischen Logik
• Church - 1932 - A Set of Postulates for the Foundation of Logic
• Cardone, Hindley - 2009 - Lambda-Calculus and Combinators in the 20th Century