[Hol-info] Jonathan Bowen to give the Peter Landin Semantics Seminar: 4 December 2025, BCS London office and on Zoom

[Andrei P. <and...@gm...>]

Dear Colleagues,

Please see below details about the event, which will be preceded by the
BCS-FACS Annual General Meeting. The event can be attended either online or
in person.

Best wishes,
Andrei


https://www.bcs.org/events-calendar/2025/december/hybrid-facs-agm-and-peter-landin-semantics-seminar/
(free registration online)
Hybrid event:
*BCS-FACS AGM & Peter Landin Semantics Seminar*
*Formal Methods: Whence and Whither*
BCS London office (near Moorgate underground station) and on Zoom, 4
December 2025

Speaker: *J <https://sites.google.com/site/jpbowen/>**onathan Bowen
<https://sites.google.com/site/jpbowen/>* (Chair of FACS)Agenda

3:30pm - Networking for attendees (refreshments and biscuits)
*4:00pm* - 5:00pm *FACS AGM* (optional!)
5:15pm - Networking for physical/online attendees. Includes refreshments
and biscuits for those in person.
*6:00pm* - *Peter **Landin Semantics Seminar Talk*
7:00pm - Questions and answers
7:15pm - Networking for physical attendees (light refreshments)
8:00pm - Event ends for online attendees
*8:30pm* - Event ends for in-person attendees
Synopsis

Alan Turing arguably wrote the first paper on formal methods over 75 years
ago. Since then, there have been claims and counterclaims about formal
methods. Tool development has been slow but aided by Moore’s Law, with the
increasing power of computers. Although formal methods are not widespread
in practical usage at a heavyweight level, their influence has crept into
software engineering practice to the extent that they are no longer
necessarily called formal methods in their use. In addition, in areas where
safety and security are important, with the increasing use of computers in
such applications, formal methods are a viable way to improve the
reliability of such software-based systems. Their use in hardware, where a
mistake can be very costly, is also important. This talk explores the
journey of formal methods to the present day and speculates on future
directions, including the use of Artificial Intelligence.
About the speaker

*Jonathan Bowen*, FBCS FRSA, is Chairman of Museophile Limited (founded in
2002), an Emeritus Professor at London South Bank University, where he was
Professor of Computing, establishing and heading the Centre for Applied
Formal Methods from 2000. From 2017, he has been an Adjunct Professor at
Southwest University, Chongqing, China. Between 2013–15, he was Professor
of Computer Science at Birmingham City University. During 2006–07, he was a
visiting academic at University College London. Between 2007–09, he was a
Visiting Professor at King's College, London, and during 2008–09, he was an
Associate at Praxis High Integrity Systems (now Altran). From 2010, he was
a Visiting Professor at the University of Westminster. During 2010, he was
a Visiting Professor at Waikato University in New Zealand, and in 2012, he
was a Visiting Professor at the Pratt Institute in New York. He is the
current Chair of the BCS-FACS Specialist Group.

------------------------

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For overseas delegates who wish to attend the event, please note that BCS
does not issue invitation letters. Photo by Markus Spiske

This event is brought to you by: FACS (Formal Aspects of Computing Science)
group
<https://www.bcs.org/membership-and-registrations/member-communities/facs-formal-aspects-of-computing-science-group>