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Logic and Computation Group: History
The group has a long history, going back over 30 years. It began
as a logic group in the Department of Philosophy in the Research
School of Social Sciences (RSSS), became an automated reasoning
project associated with the (now defunct) Centre for Information
Science Reserch (CISR), helped to form the Research School of
Information Sciences and Engineering (RSISE) and ultimately
merged with the Computer Sciences Laboratory.
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1973-1986
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In RSSS, the logic group gradually became distinct from
the rest of the Philosophy department. Key figures were
Richard Routley (later Sylvan) and Bob Meyer. The group
was world-leading in relevant logic and pioneered what is
now called substructural logic. Important publications
include Routley's Exploring Meinong's Jungle (1979)
and the first volume of Relevant Logics and their
Rivals (1982) by Routley, Meyer, Val Plumwood and Ross
Brady.
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1986-1994
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RSSS eventually set up a 5-year "Automated Reasoning
Project" and housed it in "I Block" in the Old
Administration Area. Meyer joined the project, but Sylvan
did not. After 1991, it was maintained by the Centre for
Information Science Research. The group's work in
classical theorem proving dates from this period, as does
the Logic Summer School. Key people: Michael McRobbie,
Bob Meyer, Paul Thistlewaite, John Slaney.
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1994-1999
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The Automated Reasoning Project was reborn as a founding
department of RSISE, which moved into its present building
1996. John Slaney, Greg Restall, Raj Gore, Matthias Fuchs
and Jen Davoren (in that chronological order) shaped its
research agenda. As a department, it remained small and
struggled constantly to survive. Besides continued work in
nonclassical logic and theorem proving, the research
field expanded towards software engineering and AI.
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1999-2003
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In 1999 the Computer Sciences Laboratory absorbed the
machine learning and automated reasoning groups, which
were then able to stabilise and expand. The automated
reasoning group attained once more the size of the old
RSSS project. Kata Bimbo, Sylvie Thiébaux, Yannick
Pencolé and Tomasz Kowalski were recruited during
this time. Research areas now included AI planning,
model-based diagnosis and the logic of hybrid systems.
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2003-
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NICTA arrived in 2002 and began recruiting researchers in
2003. NICTA's Logic and Computation Program was built
around the RSISE group. The work in planning and diagnosis
was split off, as Thiébaux and Pencolé
joined the Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
Program. The logic group has more than doubled in size
since the advent of NICTA, and now works more intensively
in verification and in constraint programming than it
could before.
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The rest is not history.
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Picture: Plato and Aristotle, detail from Raphael's
"School of Athens"
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