Byron Cook: Art and Scientific Process

Professor of computer science Byron Cook discusses several projects in which work with artists and designers has assisted his scientific process.

Professor of computer science Byron Cook and his colleagues recently solved the 70-year-old mathematical ‘Halting Problem’. A question of your computer’s unending hourglass or pinwheel of death, this problem addressed whether or not a particular computer programme, given an input, will run to completion in an infinite number of steps. However, when Cook tried to describe how to overcome the problem, he found that the existing mathematical symbols wouldn’t suffice. Turning to artists for assistance, Cook worked in collaboration with artists Tauba Auerbach and David Reinfurt in the designing of a new set of notation for use in mathematical reasoning.

In this talk, Cook discusses several projects in which work with artists and designers has assisted his scientific process. Cook will discuss work done in collaboration with designer David Benque, and others, on a tool that allows pharmaceutical researchers to convey biological models for formal mathematical analysis.

Dr. Byron Cook is professor of computer science at University College London, and Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research in New York City.