History of Science Lecture: Stephanie Dick

After Math: Reasoning, Proving, and Computing in the Postwar United States

Automated theorem proving (or automated reasoning) was an early field of computing research that sparked vigorous debate in the second half of the twentieth century. Practitioners of this field sought to program computers to prove mathematical theorems or to assist human users in doing so. They reimagined what “reasoning” itself might be and what logics capture or prescribe it.

In this public lecture, Stephanie Dick of the University of Pennsylvania will introduce different visions of the computer as a mathematical agent; the software that was crafted to animate those imaginings; and the novel practices and materialities of mathematical knowledge-making that emerged in tandem.