A Study of Linguistics: Representation and Exchange of Knowledge

This started in January 1996 as a history of the seminal works in automated knowledge exchange, but I have recently abandoned any attempt to be objective and reorganized it as my personal study of knowledge exchange: how I came to know what I know about formal systems, knowledge representation, linuguistics, dynamical systems, and the Web.

1986 Fall, U.T. Austin

started persuing my C.S. degree at U.T. Austin with Logic, Sets and Functions. Learned about Russel's paradox (p. 214 of [Bonevac86]), Principia and such.

A student in the dorm loaned me a copy of GEB, where I got my first exposure to the Peano Postulates (to appear again in Algebra@@) and learned to grok Godel's incompleteness theorem. The first blow.

really good calculus instructor, text [Spivak]:

Every aspect of this book was influenced by the desire to present calculus not merely as a prelude to but as the first real encounter with mathematics. Since the foundation of analysis provided the arena in which modern modes of mathematical thinking developed, calculus ought to be the place in which to expect, rather than avoid, the strengthening of insight with logic. In addition to developing the students' intuition about the beautiful concepts of analysis, it is surely equally important to persuade them that precision and rigor are neither deterrents to intuition, nor ends in themselves, but the natural medium in which to formulate and think about mathematical questions.

1988

LIN 340. text: Lewis & Papadimitriou

Turing's work on the Halting Problem (1950s?)
Church-turing thesis (equivalence of turing machines, grammars, primitive recursive functions, and other computing devices)
Chomsky's work on Linguistics
Regular, Context-Free, Context-Sensitive Languages

1989 spring

CS 351 with Ben Kuipers
Algernon and Access-Limited Logic

first study of A.I. & knowledge representation
really good English grammar book

??

Hypercard book.

"We Believe in the Interconnectedness of All Things" -- Gently

??

diff eq course turned out to be about dynamical systems

1998

attempted to teach myself Quantum Mechanics using quantum mechanics for mathemeticans book. didn't get very far.

Heisenberg uncertainty principle, Schrödinger's demon (sp?)

1991, Convex in Richardson

discovered the web via alt.hypertext in Aug '91. Started reading TimBL's original writings on the format of documents in hypermedia systems

1991 ACM Hypertext conference in San Antonio

met TimBL for the 1st time
discovered Engelbart's work.

1992 June, Convex in Richardson

MIME for global hypertext

tried to study HyTime; Never quite grokked (D. Raymond said it's just like the relational model @@where/when?)

1994 Spring, HaL in Austin

an essay on www-talk about HTML, SGML, markup languages, and the halting problem

1994 May

WWW1

1994 Oct, HaL in Austin

Boyer pointed me to QED manifesto; 08 Oct Naive Observations; QED survey

1995 March, W3C/MIT

SGML on the Web

seeds of XML: On the use of SGML for information exchange, as opposed to dummying down to HTML for publication.
BAN logic@@, larch@@
Philosophy PHB's thoughts on philosopy and the web
re-discovered Codd's Relational Calculus

a very powerful data model

1995 WWW3 in Darmstadt

"HTML is the MS-DOS of the Web" Alan Kay at WWW3. (@@ is this talk on the web somewhere?) Also: patterns (book); organic, non-linear systems vs. classical mathematics

1996-1997

catalogs and citations

Smart Catalogs, abstract and citation services

Bibliography

Arithmetics principia: Giuseppe Peano, 1889 (according to Paul Golba's notes 09 Jan 1996)
Principia Mathematica: A. N. Whitehead (1861-1947) and B. Russell (1872-1970)
1910-1913 (vol I-III)
(per Principia Mathematica: Whitehead and Russell Fri Jan 31 14:03:09 EST 1997
© Stanley Burris)
Uber formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme: Kurt Gödel, 1931
Calculus: Spivak, Michael.
2nd Ed. 1967 ISBN 0-914098-77-2
3rd (September 1994) edition at amazon
Gödel, Escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid: Douglas Hofstadter, 1979
Elements of the Theory of Computation: Lewis & Papadimitriou, ????
Proof A text for Philosophy 313K Logic, Sets and Functions: Daniel Bonevac
Department of Philosophy
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712
© Daniel Bonevac 1986
Understanding English Grammar: by Martha Kolln, 1986 (2nd ed?)
5th ed amazon
Quantum Mechanics and the Particles of Nature: An Outline for Mathematicians: Anthony Sudbery 1986 Cambridge University Press
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: Adams, Douglas 1987
The QED Manifesto: May 15, 1994

Handy place to find stuff...

The Computation and Language E-Print Archive SRC Research Reports: Modula3, BAN logic, ...
Computer Science Bibliography Glimpse Server
UCSTRI -- Cover Page: Mark V's Unified Computer Science Technical Report Index.UCSTRI

Created 3 Jan 1996 Connolly
last update by $Author: connolly $ on $Date: 2001/02/12 16:11:52 $