Harvard Book Store; WGBH Forum Network; Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

Conversation with Krista's Papademetriou author of logic comics the epic search for truth. Before we get started this evening I'd like to take just a quick moment to remind you of some events we have coming up in the store next Monday evening we host a claim's translator denude aboard heart as she discusses the first English translation of Witold novel pornographic. And she will be speaking in the store Monday evening at 7:00 p.m. and Tuesday evening we're excited to host New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff. He'll be speaking at the regatta bar in addition to interviewing local jazz saxophonist George Gard zone. And we'll have live music that evening as well that we've taken place Tuesday evening at 7:00 p.m. and there are no tickets for that. For more information about any of our upcoming events please pick up in November events flyer at the back of the room on your way out this evening or sign up for our weekly email newsletter at Harvard dot com. And now I'm pleased to introduce our moderator for this evening. Harry Lewis Professor Lewis is the Gordon Mackay professor of computer science here at Harvard where he also served as dean of the college from 1905 to 2003. He has written numerous books

including The Boston Globe bestselling excellence without a soul as well as the textbook elements of the theory of computation which he co-wrote with Professor Papademetriou. Now just for a moment for logistics. After the presentation we will I would ask you please bear with us for just a couple of moments while we rearrange the stage for the conversation. We will have time for audience questions this evening followed by a signing here at the front of the hall. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you personally for purchasing copies of the book here this evening. By doing so you are supporting both a local independent bookstore as well as this author Sirius. And now please join me in welcoming Harry Lewis. Thank you so much it's a great honor and a great pleasure for me to be here tonight to introduce Chrysos Papademetriou. I have had the pleasure of. Knowing Chris so since 1975 when he arrived for a job interview at Harvard I'd started

it a year before and he was at that point finishing his Ph.D. with at Princeton he joined our faculty the following year and we worked together on a number of things we taught a course in in those early days on. Common authorial mathematics and we had a one particularly promising student who took a problem that we presented at early in the class about getting a stack of pancakes in order by flipping wads of pancakes off the top and getting them from smallest to largest and Bill Gates and Christos got a paper out of that. Somehow however bill was not inspired by either Christos or me to go on and pursue an academic career in which I believe he could have been quite successful and Christos and went off in a different direction and he had and of course has had the most extraordinary. Scientific career and

working across fields of computer science working across the universities of the world and working now as we now see across the genres of expression. So let me say just a couple of words about each. Today is not the day and this is not the audience for cataloguing his contributions to computational complexity game theory and so on and today he's working in evolutionary biology in fact but let me just suffice to say that he's the recipient of the canoe's prize which is the top prize for the field of theoretical computer science given only to a very small number of people over the few couple of decades but it's been awarded and the extraordinary recognition of the influence that he's had on the field of computer science. He's taught at Harvard MIT Berkeley Stanford University of California at San Diego and at the National Technical University of Athens. He has had a peripatetic career although he's now settled happily at Berkeley for quite a number

of years and his writings his writings have included textbooks one of which was just mentioned research monographs hundreds of scientific papers of course a conventional novel I would say not to belittle it but to contrast it with the graphic novel about which we are about to hear. Logic comics and I'm very excited to hear about it. Christos is a a a true renaissance man. He's also a warm and wonderful human being and I'm very proud that I can number him among my friends so Christos thank you very much. It's such a privilege to be introduced by this friend. So I'm going to speak about it and even if the topic

was what I think the electoral cottons about to eventually lead us to computers and the Internet and. I thought how about the question and identified three such ideas that are out of the under sentence of the computer calculation is the least surprising of all artificial intelligence. Explain what I mean. And logic. So let's instead of the logic I'm going to draw on logic much more and I know that other superficial connection that the computer does have logic out of Gates and the transistor skun the implement logic but the beauty and logic but I mean a much deeper and he started to learn. So I started going to relation. I believe that the calculation had been constraining.

Bond of many many civilizations even though. Our civilization is the only one that he's very much aware of this and because a calculation is needed for everyone in an organized society for land distribution and taxation building Ward another geisha. But interestingly some of the most sophisticated civilizations did not have did not present numbers in ways that are conducive to compilation for example how do you out these numbers that acid and light in the station and it's of course painful even to think about multiplying them. OK so by far the most the greatest advance in compilation was not the computer but the methods are to learn today in elementary school for a lot of what it was that called forth of adding and multiplying and dividing numbers and these methods were if not invented said that he popularized by this man he was you he says he was in

Baghdad. You don't embarrass young and part of the thing from his biggest ass which is national here in three countries and it is these methods the same Saudi you know the. Main Man the democratization of calculation. I believe that this was done except in civilization compatible typographic. And what you know I believe that it was a very very important example I think that got the Leno and the and the and compelling it was any of them would be dead in the water without these methods without me and his methods. So and then the computer came I was there with him at the corollary of the story. So that's so much for a compilation but if you buy out a fishing page I mean the dream of living dead is a machine every almost every culture has So the creation myth of people a lot a lot of bets on who tried to create

something akin to a two to a human being and I have here the golem of Prague varies here of Alexandria's intelligent machine during sacrifice that he's at the back of a chess playing tatic I don't know if coming in front of your vase and on the right I have Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey it's a wonderful film of how they're commanded to Muslim but I think kind of put it on that idea it's it's a it's a it's a. Computer called the hollow and so this brings about something else the other dream for the intelligent machine. Oh he's often in you know humane modern culture the nightmare of the division machine and it's very difficult to give a public lecture about computer science without getting the question but on your life by feet up one day we're going to be told by machines OK which is I think a fair question but I think I have an answer for this OK so.

All right so logic as you know logic here it was was. A starter than before century B.C. by the start of the who invented syllogisms and in fact that is a much less known for ancient philosopher he was not going to use I had a nice finish and his name is good I suppose. And besides the implication of the struggle that I would call today brilliant connectives and daughter and so on that was in the 200 200 It's B.S. not very much happened in logic for the next two thousand years. OK so until the Dead End Of The Night of the. Eighteenth century life in its great German philosopher mathematician and scientist the man who brought us two great inventions. Calculus and optimism. There was had this had this new dream that maybe

maybe you could use logic to resolve a basic of for decision making. OK so his dream was that once you have to make an important decision about about investment world peace we would gather that time then we would sit on the table and say calculate was let us calculate. And out of the mouth of this engine the right decision would come out of it but he never really pursued technicalities. Dream it was good. Quite a bit later who actually wrote to his famous book lots of thought were out of here essentially invented modern logic. Except that up to that point logic was confined to. A set of decision making or already in the case of artist although it was a it was rules of thumb for empirical scientific reasoning. But it

was it would soon become an important tool for a mathematics to look at itself. OK so what have what was happening in the middle of the nineteenth century. He's a crisis in mathematics so for most of you what can I say mathematics sounds almost an oxymoron in the sense that. You know mathematics can be that fun or invented the Bible but the point is that they are they are a sort of stable robust and that they're not. OK so there is nothing there. How can you have a clear connection I'd buy that was the wheel and you have sort of it means your job was not going to be you know one good century non-Euclidean geometries were discovered with Suddenly the very solid fact that every indicator pressure knew about mathematics in other words the the arms of your brain became another life. Nothing in the sense that you just don't know where the banks which actually are believing.

That not everybody was shocked by these. You know among them ingenious people like kind of like a can a minute account of a second job. Perhaps the most interesting one was that towards the second half of the 19th century this month the country was how it was a brave and a brave mathematician who better to deal with infinity. OK. He was something that the mathematicians had dealt with a long face. OK because I've got this advice by the way so you know because they believe that this was a dangerous enterprise to start the probe if you or somebody think about guns out of the improved with the mind of an important hearing somebody painted it. The most impressive of which is that out of many kinds of impunity OK that is the ideal a PDA that I'm not going to get because of these clearly told him I might be sucking off my expression and they decided that

mathematics had been. Ready for that I meant was the extra of it out of this point but because it was instrumental in the sciences. But then they decided listen we have to be got a phone we have to look into ourselves and make sure that our house is in orbit so they look at the foundations of that eye to put them in order and the first question what I do this when you say successfully was a was goal of Craig Fugate he's conceived of the father of my going to object and if. I could devise the grant I have a great generalization of Boolean algebra. It would seem vented quantify in some cave where the generalization was much more suitable for attacking the problem in hand sort of you know the foundation of mathematics and having the student place way he embarked on that I think of it long but it is fifteen hundred pages on the on the foundations by the committee and thus you'll see missing it. The disaster happened a young upstart a British mathematician

philosopher but also discovered a flaw in the foundations of get to the good of the of I guess work. So the least this boy by getting points he said was loaded saddles died a few years ago in the same down way they went in Greece. So let me knowing he has a great point and it's a different part of the you know just you could be the best point of a nice town except I got there but like I mean it sounds really nice but you know in my opinion the to be born again that has been connected with a number of the century point soso out but what I discovered wrote this wonderful boy about exactly this. Very important moment of the story. So

much for my books. But I'm told by St. Cloud the good woman I love the Lord Castlewood for you with designing the foundational laws of body or group consensus that you know and then you know the less I like how it is a lower one. Yes in the House of. Let us think what was going on then because you are the same one just loves to lie. Love reading your question but also. That voice without the later grade going to make the world a lot less but I know you're going to get the setting very very simple. These are some big issues in the way. Low years were wasted. He's devoted much of the colossal said Buck Wild load and ballast for that if you're Scott. OK so this is exactly what happened then.

But on the US of was not content to point out the flaw in the fight against war but set out to correct it then therefore they say he would join forces with his former Professor Sanford the white head and never to be a Mathematica to them but you have to write it. There was no main. There was no flaws in it that I'm aware of but it completely failed to achieve that goal the other was to lay down foundations for mathematics. So the whole community had to join forces to soldier on. Except that to do that I'll tell you more about the Dickinson later sort of showed up who do you think this time was was Russell some most distinguished student and also nemesis. So the mathematical profession join forces in order to resolve this and that of the intellectually that about us or the children it was this this month who was going to talk about it all the time but also sort of the force of nature.

I would use but look at I was a we must know. We shall know that I don't know unsolvable problems and 20 years after after the big disasters like the young man in his late 20s then put together in Vienna in Vienna proved an incredible theorem something that essentially proves that no matter how many volumes of it you know right no matter how sophisticated our systems become more no matter how clever everybody matters because that are always going to be mathematical tools the atoms that are true but however have not. OK so the Soviets put an end to the foundation in the worst possible way in the foundation. OK so our and these in some senses the darkest moment of the story except that as it happens you're voting for the list of the darkest moment is also the beginning. Of the adventure of salvation so because what happened five years after after the good of this man the many others who

were there but as of yet. But I do sharpen Eva Fed of the negative messages and the sight of any of the founding director of the OK that a few times I have. But let's look at a few others that will help us. Can we at least those those groups how do you generate them be kind of got it automatically. OK can't because he's he's the boss would have a machine that does this put up to that exist and I think and he said how to prove that this is impossible but then you find yourself in anything position that in order to build that other country no machine that does something you have to invent what a machine. OK have a look at fully defining what is a machine and the GS definition of machine which is one of the delusion of the future machines that would have been in exactly this month those months was by far the most influential and because it had sort of you know it was in some sense I mean the idea that it was very versatile because they got out of it. Then I checked it because it was very got a show you could almost see.

OK and and also you had the gift of the robot if you will be even started. OK of you basically means something means some says it's just software. OK basically says that you don't need to have a separate machine for doing got relations for just about as you know you know that much of what I think that's what he made. But you gotta have the same machine the same laptop and the software would do the job. It was is now a very old idea but it does the fact that it's obvious he's. Going to be doing I said that. But that would raise all the time just. Getting to the point is that I think that these are the only sense of place so well on the real.

So it's just about television was invented. But before there was nobody there was nobody on the set. It's gone. So the point is that when they did it then what happened. He had no brain. Oh yes that's right. And he's going to notice they want to eventually get that it would also get to me. And then by clicking and by the sound of breaking and suddenly they don't know what I mean. So in some sense I think either side it gives you was was a it was a you know whether to give that would be neither side is out doing is another idea. These other question but of course they would be but the but who knows with what DeLay and then they yes and the but they World War later for no human created

at last the machine which is probably a million times slower and a million times more expensive than your life. So I think the Senate committee will be going to be going to start ok because oh oh oh. But Oh We'll be back on another life today and will be on its intellectual Gondor but. The reason why I'm not like the Saudis so he's he's he's sort of you know that you want us to have it which is just beyond belief beyond belief logic. So and I have yet to meet with my beliefs I don't know where have I did that any boast of that if I didn't figure he was he was that he was a schoolteacher in New York most of his life very cagey and my vision of the field it was that sense you know he did what the good of intuiting did.

Yes later but out of the about about the other out of pure insecurity you kept him in his throat and he was manic depressive and he actually died at the hands of his doctor during the helicopter regiment so no counter on that better. Life can't order was written out of mental clinics with the melancholy of for most of his life and he died in the end I said I'm a good goes on the fight has been called the greatest logicians he's a starter was died of malnutrition in the 70s he refused food. I don't know if you have a big voice. So even but a glance of sound if you like better than that I smell and hear the rustle of leaves with constancy of madness through his life and the like and also had schizo for the next song so they all had amazing brushes with

with the with with insanity. So it was better the same except that in the last years of your life you know the anti-Semitic business which was either completely sane in Germany that video and and I mean all because time I could I could over me no. But listen you know if we free from that invented you know if we were to prevent that the kind of guy like you can start you know every created book you know like you know he I don't you know why don't you know. So it's just the real ones. What I said was that we're going to buy tickets night and and two to gratify a fine little boy and. And I said look you know don't be sorry. That's OK. And and again Stein slammed the door saying God that even if from something at which point

I said my look to yourself for what's happening with so. So and but of course then most of the most illogical most of the stories out of Ireland doing cool was that there is no it was not due to into madness. But but some of this is about getting you know the good deal the laws of England with them because of his homosexuality which was in the Gulf and he was gone that necessity or hormone treatment which led to suicide. But yes later. OK so this is this is OUR a lot of this is a subject of the book. Let you go. OK so our. So I should tell you I you know this is the last. Is that OK with giving the dominos. I should tell you this I know it's not a biography of us and it's not going to be a biography of us even

more it's not to be any kind of like a lot of people told me I have understood things that in his book that I never thought I would share and these make me glad but it's any other company got together once a year so you know that. You know. I mean I think that I didn't write this book to teach anybody you know exactly what the US did NOT OK so that frankly there's too much of a question. Well you know I've spent 40 years in the U.S. That's OK so that's it. So when I you know I just want to do what I think maybe I'm going to be. Made up story. But that's that's that's what logical reason but what's even more explicit about disappoints OK so. So it's definitely not not you know so you have to explain a little illogical in the following sense that if this was an adult you know OK I wrote the fiction then that sort of a.

Lot of what I wrote the book session you would have to speak about if you deal with a lot because I don't like nobody. But he did not. So. I'm sort of being the sense you have explained a lot but only here. OK so OK so without sort of that I do. So this is part of the massive trauma that was ourselves childhood. OK so and and yet is that also discover and you believe you see they might you know so if you don't have you know our public is the same but I don't want to show up so you know I really need help getting to the high point of the very thing that I thought it was about the British. Government. And adolescence OK but when I saw the magic here of course is the Mike that the magic of the promise will step in the that one finds in

mathematics. There you go. It's on the call it's Internet it's with his wife but also that's very serious work with a white van. She takes steps to meet the foot again and later in another town to meet a contest of ideas dreams by the way never happened. Even though even though he did spend time with his wife. But so last month you know there was an event that both of us going to love and there was a talk by by a few lost. Part of my cause and that's why I don't like the book but also just. By doing so and I am going to tell you I was severely amazed by what I said you know but I thought oh that's a made up you know so and so I thought you might have to never say never spoken.

So you know but what about your daughter. It was a full not a so-so and frankly sort of you know if we had you know it there was never a conflict between kind of blood and then and by God of course we would like to write a book about that point here but the stories in both the logic and getting bites out that we have to do have to do we don't have to lie much OK so. So this is he devoted to this is what I so watching here but it's but believe it or not he had to address this is here that this is what I said and then and and and the white head deciding to do that but if you get my my god this is a this is a loss of not being with white kids wife. He said that I think a few of you. Might be wondering you know very little so on so on so suddenly the only explicit sexual scene that I could get

past my my my. Well if you post a small i know it's OK so. So this is again this again and I so flirting with the weaver wife his wife. This is because tying some of that bend over time. This is if you're saying it was you know this man so you know now that I know you know here he discovered that the whole of Europe he's a socialist I don't missions in the first world war would be for this government he's his deep insights like yes I know the name of the world does not as I do the work and the and he actually he had all the he said she is grateful. Doctors let you go for those articles in an Italian prison of scum so they tidy and save human bio from history side of good odds by capturing him. So this is just and snowing and I salute with his newfound fear of

language this is good announcing that he's discovered all this while the Nazis missed that izing throughout Europe. Of course we have. So this is the story of the framing stories. He's better than us of giving the lecture named for United. America knew best even though it looks very much like that place so I tricked the artists in this direction so. And so the idea is that they'd say save of the Second World War but the best of us tried to get you on the side like any that the United States you know the very second world war and I suppose that these important decisions it needs logic let me tell you about it here and here and that's that's sort of the story of one lecture there is a second framing out of every week so we know we are so debating back and forth the

fine points that's Apostolos with blue I like or so the sketch of with that I had this character we know that it would be yellow that you know that you know you know I love that out except for the got a pretty yet OK so. And the need is on now does call us and they did a search and let him so and so he sent out every note VSE is fictional in the following sense that we have made the argument of the form. Listen PC's and I. OK my conduct that is not the case but the but but and we both lost the BS but something about a soul so what I'm saying I guess. Don't believe everything you read or write so and we have but we have we have lost enough and seen more than enough and sought some point and of course the. He tends to when it all started Sure then which is on there and you're going to feel that the finale of the oldest there.

Is.