Heriot-Watt University

Inaugural Lectures Series


Introduction Principal and Vice-Chancellow Professor John. S. Archer Heriot-Watt University is delighted to launch a new series of inaugural lectures for the year 2000. The lectures which open to a public audience will be given by recently appointed Professors within the university. The most senior level of internal promotion and new external appointments to Professorships of the university set a tone of achievements,
distinction, innovation, research excellence, academic leadership, and increasingly, commercialisation potential, all of which are hallmarks of Heriot-Watt. We are delighted to offer to a wider audience the opportunity to share in these achievements, and to help promote greater public awareness and understanding of the pioneering and innovative research being undertaken within the university. The lecture series affirms the University's recognistion of the significant contribution to the University and to the wider community of our new Professors and their research colleagues. Pursuit of research excellence is central to Heriot-Watt strategies, aims and objectives. We continue to build on established technological strength and an international reputation for high calibre fundamental and applied research in Science, Engeneering, Management and Language. The University's research is highly commercially and industrially relevant and we are recognised for outstanding success in acdemic-industial and business collaboration. The University seeks to provide a stimulating environment which strengthens quality of the learning experience, promoting innovative, multi-disciplinary approaches, and which enables high calibre staff to excel in their respective areas of research. The inaugural lecture series will provide some evidence of our success. The programme of five lectures each year will span a broad and varied range of subjects and should offer wide public appeal. I look forward to welcoming you, and I hope that you will find the events both interesting and enlightening.


Inaugural Lecture Title: ULTRA - Useful Logics, Types, Rewriting and Applications Professor Fairouz Kamareddine PhD, MSc, BSc Chairman: Professor Roger Clarke Vote of Thanks: Professor Henk Barendregt Wednesday 2 February 2000, 5.30 pm The Cedar suite, Hugh Nisbet Building, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton Campus, Edinburgh, Scotland
Abstract: In the modern world we rely on more and more complex and automated systems which affect every area of our daily lives from airplanes to factories. Automated systems are continually developing and becoming increasingly more sophisticated. To ensure reliability and safety, we use various forms of formal reasoning, from logic and set theory to type theory. But how do we know that our formal reasoning systems are reliable and safe? For over a century, mathematicians have been seeking formal systems that are reliable and sufficient for our needs. Inconsistency is an ever-present danger. As recently as the 1970s, important systems were shown to be inconsistent, and there are also difficulties with expressiveneness. In the 1930s, Goedel proved that there are true statements of arithmetic which cannot be proven in any consistent formal system. In her lecture, Professor Kamareddine, Department of Computing and Electrical Engineering, will survey her past and present vision and work on finding reliable and expressive formal systems during her journey from Maths to Computer Science and Informatics.

The Principal's Invitation to Professor Kamareddine's inaugural lecture

Chairman: Professor Roger Clarke

Vote of Thanks: Professor Henk Barendregt