From owner-qed Thu May 12 10:32:47 1994 Received: from mail.aero.org (mail.aero.org [130.221.16.2]) by antares.mcs.anl.gov (8.6.4/8.6.4) with ESMTP id KAA03165 for ; Thu, 12 May 1994 10:32:24 -0500 Received: from antares.aero.org ([130.221.192.46]) by mail.aero.org with SMTP id <111114-2>; Thu, 12 May 1994 08:31:45 -0700 Received: from armadillo.aero.org by antares.aero.org (4.1/AMS-1.0) id AA15415 for qed@antares.mcs.anl.gov; Thu, 12 May 94 08:31:33 PDT Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 08:31:33 -0700 From: cal@antares.aero.org To: qed@antares.mcs.anl.gov Subject: conference announcement Message-Id: <94May12.083145pdt.111114-2@mail.aero.org> I thought this conference session might be of interest: IMACS Announcement - please distribute to interested parties The 14th IMACS World Congress is in Atlanta this year, July 11-15 (IMACS is the International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation). I have organized a session on ``New Mathematics for Computing'' (see my proposal to the conference organizers below), which includes 7 papers on context and self-reference, other new logics, and a few other topics I find interesting. I have some thoughtful people from the mathematics, computing and artificial intelligence communities who will speculate interestingly about what new mathematics might be needed for computing. THE SESSION IS FRIDAY AFTERNOON, July 15, 2:15-5:15pm (for more detailed conference information, see below) The reason for the session is to start discussions and announce our interest to the rest of the research community. The session will therefore contain more speculative notions and research problems than solutions, though a few promising or successful directions are included. In particular (just to give you an idea of my own prejudices), I think that the area of computational complexity is not helpful in the way I want, since asymptotics are not the main problem; the constants needed for the mid-range (very large but not infinitely large values) are. I am especially interested in the kinds of computing problems people think the research community has skipped or deferred because they are too inelegant or otherwise strange (heterogeneity is an important property of complex systems). I want to make this session an announcement to all mathematicians and "fellow travelers" that we need more models, methods, concepts, and formal spaces in which to do interesting things if we are to study complex systems effectively. Session Proposal for IMACS Title: New Mathematics for Computing There is no existing mathematics that can adequately describe some of the new computational paradigms now in widespread use in software for complex systems involving computers, and it is even harder to give a formal basis for hybrid combinations among these new paradigms. This session will focus on the new kinds of mathematics that these systems seem to require, and on some promising lines of research in mathematics and computation. Dr. Christopher Landauer System Planning and Development Division The Aerospace Corporation The Hallmark Building, Suite 187 13873 Park Center Road, Herndon, Virginia 22071 e-mail: cal@aero.org, Phone: (703) 318-1666, FAX: (703) 318-5409 The Conference organizer is William F. Ames School of Mathematics Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0160 (404) 894-3953 ames@math.gatech.edu